


The days you spent accosting the sun

by Snatchfer



Series: The sun unfolding [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (like daemons from his dark materials except different), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dave | Technoblade and Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are Siblings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Dynamics, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hypixel - Freeform, I Tried, Piglin Hybrid Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Slow Burn, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Spirit Animals, Swearing, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit Friendship, TommyInnit Misses Toby Smith | Tubbo, TommyInnit Swears (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, soul animals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27820675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snatchfer/pseuds/Snatchfer
Summary: Tommy spends his childhood with his Soul animal, just like anyone else. He spends his teenage years discovering and traversing new relationships and experiences - with his Soul animal by his side - just like anyone else.Unlike everyone else, he also spends his childhood and teenage years grieving his Soul animal's constant disappearances - and resolves to find out why.///The sky is large enough to taste, several evenings later. Tommy sticks out his tongue, and imagines its flavour - raspberry horizon and red bell pepper stars; perhaps a minty aftertaste. The thought blends into the skin of his lips until they sting and turn rosy pink. He bathes in the familiar feeling of loud noise in a quiet place.The sun has long since gone down, but the sky is still a bright blue across the mountainous horizon, and above him, the stars flicker and blink to the imaginary tune of his thoughts. It’s chilly outside, but Wolf is a warm weight at his side - right up until he isn’t.And that’s when things start to get chaotic.Edit: 02/12/2020
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & TommyInnit, Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Series: The sun unfolding [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100276
Comments: 84
Kudos: 360





	1. Ghost of your votives

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if any of the creators end up saying anything about not liking fanfic about them, then I'll take this down, but I think we're in the clear. If Wilbur can fuck a fish and Phil can fuck a Samsung fridge, then I'm sure they'll be okay with this. 
> 
> Uhh I've been writing this for a few days, so here's the first chapter.
> 
> (side note: does anyone else feel really uncomfortable typing the irl names of creators for the tags? Especially ones who've specified that they dislike their irl names being used. I get that it's to specify so there's no mix up, but I don't think there are any other "Technoblades" out there rn).

The first time his Soul animal disappears, Tommy is eight years old.

He and Badlinu are at the foot of a grassy hill on the side of a floating island, feet dangling over the edge. It’s the first time either of them have come this far on the parkour before, so they had decided to savour the moment, pick at the grass and lay in the sun.

Far below them, the buzz of the usual Hypixel crowd drifts up in the breeze, interspersed with panicked cries when fellow parkourers miss their jumps. Grass rolls in the wind, spraying swaying shadows across his face. It’s a normal day, an almost perfect day.

The most important part, of course, is the dog at his side, front paws crossed and head resting against his side, the dark shaggy fur tickling him with each exhale. His Soul animal - what he’d been told to be an Irish wolfhound.

It’s as he’s raising a hand to scrub a hand through his scruff that it happens. He doesn’t even see it happen - one moment his best friend is lying warm at his side, dozing as he often does; the next, there’s only flattened grass and empty space.

Something burning and panicked grips him by the teeth, wrenching him to his feet as he scans wildly for where he could have gone. Something in his throat clenches, something awfully like dread, or horror, or the gasping need for this to be a dream. Adrenaline tingles in his fingers like he’s touched fireworks.

“Wolf?” He croaks, the tiny word wincing its way through the barricade in the pit of his chest. “Wolf?” he repeats, louder.

“Tommy?” Badlinu is on his feet, too, arms half-raised as if in want to calm him. But Tommy can’t be calmed, he’s already scouring the island; racing to the edges to peer into the void, beating back long grass, even if nothing is feasibly long enough to hide Wolf. “What’s happened?”

Tommy turns to look, numb to the feeling of how drawn his own expression must be. The face of something so scary tugs at his insides like a monster with tendrils for spectral hands. Badlinu’s shoulders tilt, as if accommodating the heavy weight of a creature. Even though he’s never been able to see it, Tommy knows that it must be his Soul animal - a pine marten with short brown fur.

He stares at the open space, imagining the spotty image of a marsupial. There’s nothing there - nothing that he can see, at least - but it still exists. There’s something hard to explain about the manner with which Wolf is absent, and his friend’s Soul animal is not.

“Wolf’s gone.” he announces, and the moment he does, he feels the full gravity of it pulling at his limbs. Something cracks open within him, like the shell around some sort of feeling, coated thick with magma. “I can’t see him anywhere!”

Something in his friend’s face blinks on and off, flickering between disbelief and fear. “Can… can that happen?” His fingers clench around empty air, pausing as if to grasp a tiny piece of sky in his palm, but Tommy knows he’s holding something much more important than any of that.

“Well, obviously it can,” he snaps back, then clicks his jaw shut. The air brushes his hair, and he imagines Wolf’s tongue brushing his fringe aside. It’s a poor imitation. Quieter, he mumbles, “I can’t find him anywhere.”

His friend stands, still as the cage holding Tommy’s whirling thoughts, and conjures up a handful of words to inspire calm in him. It doesn’t work, but it certainly puts them into action. “Well, he can’t have gone far. Let’s look some more.” 

No one can see Tommy’s Soul animal besides him, but they both set about searching. It’s late into the evening before Wolf appears again, a brandished salve to Tommy’s wound.

He’s not ashamed to admit that he cried into the shaggy fur around Wolf’s neck that night, exhausted and trembling at the steps of the announcement board. The infographic above his head had glowed openly into the maw of the night, and Wolf had laid his heavy head upon Tommy’s shoulder. As annoyingly calm and easily monotone as ever.

He’d felt hollow without him.

* * *

He’d spent the weeks and months after clinging to Wolf’s fur like a lifeline - and Wolf grew larger quicker and quicker. Tommy’s soulmate must have had a growth spurt in that time. On two legs, Wolf easily towers over him, but on four he only just reaches Tommy’s chest. He takes some small modicum of pride in that.

This time, it’s just him and Tubbo hanging out. The lavender sky of pre-dawn lights up the morning, just the bare hints of blue to herald the coming day. They’re in the main lobby, this time.

They sit on the bottom lip of the telescope from the observatory, their backs to the sun. The easy haze rising off the horizon mirrors the early fog, which won’t dissipate for several more hours. Outstretched before them, across the stony bridge and down the hill, huge houses roofed with orange stone roll away like vast golden fields.

They sit, side by side, Wolf’s crossed front paws in his lap and Tubbo’s Grey parrot presumably nearby. On a whim, he takes off his shoes and socks, and feels the brisk wind flit between his toes and up the soles of his feet. Tubbo laughs, and does the same, swinging his legs back and forth against the wind.

Tommy pulls a loaf of warm sourdough bread from his bag and offers half to Tubbo, who in turn supplies a jar of sticky golden honey. “It’s dandelion honey,” Tubbo explains, using a honey dipper to glaze the crust of his bread, and then pouring the same on Tommy’s. It tastes sweet and colourful on his tongue.

They sit, watching the chilly morning rise into post-dawn, blue coating the horizon with heavy strokes of light. Even from behind them, sunbeams refract in the glass of the telescope, leaving them both blinded for a few moments while they wait for it to pass.

“Do you think Soul animals get hungry?” Tubbo asks, at last, his mouth full of bread. His voice is still drowsy from the early hour.

Tommy considers. “No,” he declares, wiping excess honey from his fingers back onto the bread, and then taking a bite. “Of course not. They’re not like you and me, are they?”

Tubbo regards the open air between his legs, parted just enough for a small bird-shaped body to fit between, if it had been cold enough. “Yeah, I know - I know, but -”

“Tubbo!” Something dashes through his groggy brain at the speed of light, igniting his synapses in a way he doesn’t usually feel until a ways into the evening - because there _isn’t_ just empty air between Tubbo’s legs. There’s a scruffy looking mound of feathers with a large curved beak and -

And it’s gone.

“Did you see that?” He exclaims, nearly jumping to his feet, much to the grousing of Wolf, who huffs and shifts until Tommy settles down again. He scratches him behind the ears in apology.

“See what?”

“Your Soul animal! I think I just saw it.” Tubbo’s eyes visibly sparkle - or maybe that’s just the sun again. Tommy grins. “A grey parrot, right?”

“What? No way! Sam?” Tubbo actually does jump to his feet, and maybe Tommy’s imagining it, but he thinks he hears a squawk of protest. “How old do you think my soulmate is, then?”

Tommy shrugs. “He’s gotta be a teenager by now, right? That’s when Soul animals start appearing.”

“I think so…” Tubbo lifts a hand to his shoulder, running a hand down invisible feathers on an invisible bird. “Can you see him now?”

The morning passes quickly.

* * *

The overture of the day enlightens them with the echoing timbre of bird squabble. The morning lights up in streaks of sleepy oranges and blues. Clouds dust the sky in whisps high above, the softening reminder of calm before rain. Sheets of billowing frost ripples with the breezy grass as Tommy bounds up the parkour that morning.

Wolf, just ahead of him (and infinitely better at negotiating the jumps on four legs than he has any right to be), streaks onto one of the larger terracotta islands that float above the brand new Bedwars lobby. Behind the two of them, Tubbo and his Soul animal (which flickers in and out of view like a candlelight in a storm) hop up with similar ease. Badlinu goes at a more sedate pace, balancing his own invisible weight over his shoulders with the air of someone settled with a common hassle.

“Your Soul animal cheats,” Badlinu complains, once they all finally reach the top. Wolf had come first by far, his apparent competitive nature sated for the time being. Tommy’s almost certain Tubbo’s grey parrot could’ve easily beaten him out, though. Wings and all.

Tubbo huffs, and distantly, Tommy hears a whoop of dissent. Like if there were a particularly affronted parrot nearby. “His name is Sam. And he doesn’t cheat.”

“Yeah,” Tommy agrees, interrupting his own laughter, “Is it really cheating if he’s not even doing the course?”

“No, listen -”

“Hey, are we playing hopscotch or not? I reckon we could add on some parkour this time, too.” Badlinu interrupts brazenly.

Tommy laughs and stamps on the corner of a small outcropping of rock, spilling shards and chips of stone onto the ground. He picks up the largest three pieces and hands the smaller two to his friends. “There, see? Now we can make our arena.”

“It’s - it’s not actually called an arena, you know,” Tubbo begins, crumbling some of the terracotta against his thumb, which comes away a bright orange-brown. “And the rain will wash it away soon anyway - check out those clouds.”

Horsetail clouds, same as before, encircle the cluster of floating islands that hum with people. They are pale, and milquetoast, and wispy. It’s fine.

Tommy huffs. “If you didn’t want to play, you didn’t have to come. And besides, the rain won’t come for _hours_. There’s plenty of time!” He waves at the sky, as if to prove his point. Wolf whuffs in agreement.

By the end of the day, they’re soaked, exhausted, and all hopscotch-ed out. Tubbo is laughing in muddied boots, whispering quietly to his Soul animal, which can be heard whistling back ever so faintly, even if it's invisible again. Badlinu stares down his collar, where an invisible lump makes creases against his shirt.

Tommy himself is bundled up underneath Wolf, who stares mildly around, as if unbothered. He is almost one hundred percent certain that he won that game.

* * *

He’s ten, and sitting on the stone steps before the Bedwars game teleporters. It’s still a fairly new game in Hypixel, but it’s already getting pretty popular. He enjoys wandering the crowds, watching the different people with their strange clothes and unique faces. Humans, inhumans, and everything in between. The vast swathes of adult Soul animals; big and small, energetic and not - long, stocky, cute, thin, scary, or short. Animals of all kinds - most of which Tommy’s never seen before.

Besides, Wolf seems to like it here, for whatever reason.

Instead of lying down, Wolf is sitting at his side. He’s gotten much larger already; his paws nearly match the size of his legs. Tommy’s gotten taller too, but not as tall as Tubbo just yet. He can’t wait to get a massive growth spurt and be taller than everybody - even Wolf.

He watches people come and go, watches as new folks go crooked, as if on new legs, with every teleportation. Young travellers try their hand at the parkour, tripping on the balancing beams and steadying themselves on the terracotta islands. Every now and then, groups of kids he recognises from his time growing up on the server will appear and chase each other up, each going for the quickest time.

Tommy’s already mastered the parkour, of course. He’s just awesome like that.

It’s the reason he gets up when the last two runners get teleported back to the main island. Wolf follows dutifully behind, eyeing the kids like they’re dangerous. They’re not. Just a little aggressive at times, is all.

“Hey, guys,” he greets, relieved to see that none of them immediately round on him. “Can I give it a go?”

One of them laughs. “You’re not even that great at parkour, Tommy!”

He bristles. “Sure I am! I can kick your ass.”

“Try me.” he and his friend snicker to each other, and they line up at the start, along with a girl a little older than all of them. Her Soul animal is an overexcited hedgehog, which sneezes at him on the starting line.

One of the others steps forward, hobbling a little on digitigrade legs in plantigrade boots. She starts the countdown, and on “two!” they all speed forward. Tommy complains at unfair starting conditions (ignoring the fact that he’d done the same), but dashes forward. Wolf is at his side, somehow managing to look bemused with a wolfish snout.

He takes the first set of jumps in stride, easily leaping over them to the next checkpoint. He wheels around the corner to head to the next set of jumps, vaulting the mining equipment in one quick movement, even as he stumbles on his toes. The others are just ahead of him.

He clears the next leaps insouciantly, gaining on them fast after his stumble - one of them accidentally tripping along the way. He thinks he saw the older girl shove him a little from the corner of his eye, but he’s too exhilarated to do anything about it other than shriek breathlessly and bound forward.

By the time he’s reached the final stretch, the two friends from before have more than made up for time by him and the girl getting into a small squabble and nearly pushing each other off the edge of a railway track. The final golden pressure plate looms against the backdrop of an overcast sky, and he’s almost certain he can make it to first.

He would’ve, too, if the two friends hadn’t pounced on him, bringing all three of them crashing down through the gap in the tiny flying islands. He just barely spots the girl cheering to herself at the very last platform, before the world goes blue and grey and black.

Something wild swoops in his belly, like his guts are squishing against each other in order to get back up there, on the platform at the top. Something cold begins to creep up in his neck, just as he goes nauseous with telltale teleportation sickness. He blinks, and he’s suddenly back at the last checkpoint, the other two beside him. The world fizzles into shape around him.

Wolf stands between him and them, hackles raised, and Tommy suddenly gets a bad feeling about all this. Surely there’s a difference between friendly shoves and deliberate takedowns?

“The fuck was that, Tommy?” The one who’d challenged him demands, the sheaths of fur on his arms standing on end.

“I don’t know! We played the game. The fuck is with you?”

“You shoved Tegan is what’s with me. Since fuckin’ when can you do that? It’s cheating.”

Tommy scowls. “That wasn’t me! And besides, you both just dragged me into the void. On purpose. What the fuck, man?” Wolf barks harshly in agreement (or what Tommy assumes is agreement), much to his surprise. Wolf barely ever barks. Or even makes much sound at all.

More surprising, is the flinch that erupts from the two of them directly after. That is way too well-timed. “Did - did you just hear -”

They seem to recover quickly. “Oh, is your shit Soul animal pissed at us? Fuck ‘em. What can it goddamned do, huh?” His knuckles crack against each other, like some dumb mockery of what an actually-cool Hypixel player would do.

It’s not Tommy’s first fight, and it definitely won’t be his last.

* * *

As much as he wishes that they had been wrong, the truth of the matter is this - Wolf _couldn’t_ help him. He barked and he snarled and he growled, but he just couldn't summon forth anything close to a physical form.

He gets in the door of his tiny wooden shack on the outskirts of Hypixel’s housing area, which he cobbled together himself. Wolf’s careful guidance wasn’t much help, but at least he tried. Well, it hasn’t fallen in on them just yet.

His face is bleeding from somewhere - he can smell it, more than anything, but he’s a tad more concerned about the way his knuckles haven’t stopped hurting ever since they gave a piercing _crack_ when he punched someone’s chin. Can’t say he didn’t try, at least.

He stumbles over to the piece of lumpy glass he stole from Tubbo (and now uses as a mirror) and assesses the damage with as much accuracy as he can. His face is dark and splotchy, and blood dribbles sluggishly from his nose like a leaky pipe. His left eye has a ring of blue circling it like flower petals, and his nose is just slightly skewiff.

Everything hurts.

Wolf nudges his hand gently, his nose wet against Tommy’s palm. He takes a hold of the long fur over his neck to keep himself grounded, blinking back tears from the pain.

He uses a sheet of paper to mop up the blood, which had mostly congealed into his nostril by now, and washes up his scraped knees, wincing and biting back sobs as he goes. He’s just considering what to do about his knuckles and nose, when he hears a commotion coming from the next room over.

He steps carefully into the kitchen (which really only means a basin of water and a smoker), half expecting to see one of those guys from the lobby parkour, and is met with the dull gloom of an empty room. He waves the torch on the wall into the empty space, sending flashes of gleaming light reflecting off polished stone. He almost thinks he just imagined the noise, when something clatters behind his table.

Instantly, he hops back into the storage room, making space in the doorway for Wolf to step through. Actually, Wolf doesn’t seem too bothered at all. Usually he’d be standing protectively in front of him (for all the good it would do), but right now he’s just curiously wandering in, as if to investigate a particularly enjoyable conundrum. Not a single hackle raised.

Tommy peers back into the room, torch first. Instantly, he spies a pair of glowing yellow dots peering back. The eyeshine flickers briefly in imitation of a blink, and Tommy realises that it is not a human sitting behind the table, but a stocky creature with pale stripes running across its furry face. Its eyes are unsettlingly small compared to the rest of its broad body.

He takes a shaky breath. He plants his feet as steadily as he can against the floor, gingerly wipes excess tears from his cheeks, and cautiously steps back to the chest where he’d set up with the mirror and the washcloths. He can sort out stowaway animals later.

Wolf huffs and follows him back into the room, watching as he helplessly inspects his shaking hands and trembling, sheet-white face. What can he do? He’s just -

Something shuffles and skitters across the oak floor in the kitchen. When he peeks at the door, there’s a dark snout emerging from the shadows. It crosses the threshold into the light, pottering into view on bouncy paws.

A badger. _Meles meles_.

Its fossorial claws click rhythmically against the floor, and Tommy watches in exhausted silence as it hops up onto the table in an almost casual way, with the unnatural-natural grace he’s come to expect from Wolf. And only Wolf. He’d thought it was a Soul animal thing, but it appears that normal animals can make impossible jumps like that too.

Maybe it just had a splash potion thrown on it by mistake.

He’s broken from his trance when it advances toward his injured hand, which rests carefully on the wooden chest. He scrambles back, painfully wrenching his hand to his breast in a short moment of panic. He almost thinks he might anger the creature (which could probably beat him up with those massive claws, holy _shit_ ) with the sudden movement, but it doesn’t move from its spot, and sits calmly where it is.

He feels a nudge on the small of his back, and turns to see Wolf prodding him forward with the sort of aplomb only Wolf can muster. Not for the first time, he wonders what type of a person his soulmate is.

His Soul animal, usually overprotective in strange situations with potentially dangerous adversaries, is encouraging him to approach this definitely strange badger. Seemingly intelligent, odd jumping powers, appeared _out of nowhere -_

And he stops, then.

Because it had briefly crossed his mind, before. But the more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense. This badger must be a Soul animal. But whose? And what is it doing here, with him?

He remembers that terrifying day, two years ago, when Wolf had disappeared for just over two hours. He remembered the all-consuming panic, the fear that had welled up inside of him until all that had once been stiff and sturdy became lubricated with terror. The borderline anger at being abandoned, the gruesome, brackish taste of betrayal that crept up his throat.

He looks at the badger.

He has absolutely no idea what is going on.

But he knows his Soul animal. And he trusts him. So, trembling, he presents the back of his hand to the badger.

Gently, it takes his hand between its claws. Tommy watches it hold his hand between both sets of thick claws, and waits for something to happen. He almost gets a little drowsy just standing there.

Then, in a quick moment of distraction when he goes to turn and look at Wolf at his side, he feels it. He hears it, too.

Pain explodes from the two broken knuckles, and he stumbles back into Wolf, who steadies him with his long back. He chokes back a sob, wheezing from the pain and staring, horrified at the badger first, then turns his gaze to Wolf. Wolf is as unmoved as ever.

_“Fuck!”_

As the ache gradually begins to crumble away into the dull throb from before, he eyes the badger, wondering what exactly it had done. He scatters glances between his hand and the badger, unwilling to tear his stare from the perceived threat. “Fuck, shit, fuck - shit, fuck -”

But Wolf is still unbothered. What just happened?

Wolf trots forward to stand between him and the badger, and finally he feels safe enough to check his hand properly, and… well, he’s not exactly sure what he expected, but his knuckles are twisted to rights again. He thinks.

He stares at his hands, the painful agony from his face and hand and knees slowly ebbing to the background as he stares in wonder at the matching knuckles. They’re all in their rightful places again - although the two that he’d messed up look a bit knobbly. And it still hurts. A lot. But he can live with that. “Fu- huck…”

When he finally gets his breathing back under control, he looks up to see the spooky badger Soul animal with a piece of meat in hand. It’s not the first time he’s seen a Soul animal holding something, but it’s not like he knows many adult Soul animals personally, so it’s still weird to see it do something like that so naturally. Almost like it could have always touched things, since its conception, which can’t be true.

He ignores the fact that the badger must have disappeared some time while he was admiring his fixed fingers.

He takes the offered dried meat (something it must have recovered from one of his chests), and sighs with relief as the grumble in his stomach he hadn’t noticed settles. Almost immediately, he begins to feel better, and the ache dissolves into a thin veil he can easily ignore.

He’s too busy savouring the food to notice the badger standing on its hind legs and reaching out to his face. By the time he does, it’s too late, and the eerie _crack_ of his nose snapping back into place brings him out of his reverie like a slap at dawn.

A startled cry bolts from his mouth, muffled by a mouthful of meat. It’s soothed by the following swallow, but tears still prick his eyes again for the nth time that night. “ _Ow!_ Fuck! What the hell?”

Something raw crackles from his throat; the sound of a lingering fatigue. Almost like he’s flipped a switch by thinking anything close to the word “tired”, he begins to feel the heavy blanket of exhaustion drape across his shoulders. 

He heads to bed that night, and curls up between two warm bodies. The night ends on a medium note.

When he wakes up, the badger is gone.

* * *

Wolf appears for the first time to Badlinu a month later. He can’t touch anything, and he’s mostly see-through, but all four celebrate with slabs of warm bread and chunks of goat’s cheese. Tubbo shows up in the midafternoon with a jar of sage honey and another honey dipper.

Over the course of the next few months, Wolf appears more and more often, mostly when Tommy gets into trouble with local kids. Other than that, he doesn’t tend to surface from his invisibility that much. 

Tommy’s pretty sure he just doesn’t like to deal with the attention that comes with being visible or physical. He’s pretty sure Wolf’s doing it on purpose.

* * *

The second time Tommy’s Soul animal disappears, he almost - he _almost_ expects it.

Like making up for having two Soul animals at once meant that he had to suffer with zero once more. He’s alone this time, and no longer has the energy to sit up and search. The last time this happened, Wolf had returned on his own. Out of nowhere, quietly. As Wolf tends to do.

Tommy lies in bed, that day. He lies in bed and he waits, and waits, and waits. He’s late to the meeting he’s supposed to have with Tubbo that morning, at the observatory as usual. He doesn’t eat breakfast.

He lies in bed, and stares at the ceiling emptily.

About forty minutes in, Tubbo lets himself into his room, catches him gazing at the walls like they have the useless answers to his insignificant questions. A visible parrot sits atop his shoulder; a trusty companion that doesn’t disappear. It can’t become physical just yet, but it certainly tries.

Tubbo does not ask any questions, and for the next two hours, they lie in bed together, staring at the ceiling and the walls and the windows. Tubbo had made the glass for those windows himself.

At two hours and fifty minutes without a Soul animal, Wolf appears once more.

Tommy still can’t bring himself to get up.

The four lie in bed together for the rest of the day, and well into the night, until they all eventually drop off to sleep.

* * *

He’s thirteen and watching the Bedwars win streak world-record holder stroll up from the lobby teleporter. His stride is long and confident, his face is seemingly unbothered by the stares and the whispers, and he has no Soul animal.

Or, that’s the rumour.

Technoblade’s ears flop against his temples with every step, a scruff of a fringe curling over his forehead but never his eyes. A bubble braid drifts from the base of his head to his shoulder blades, thick and wild-looking. Wiry hair drapes over his arms and hands in thick layers, like the hair of a real pig.

He’s a well-known inhuman on Hypixel, nowadays. Tommy vaguely remembers seeing him around the Skywars lobby when he was younger, but the age gap was always too large for them to play together.

For some reason, Wolf always gets especially agitated whenever he’s in the area, so Tommy’s always steered as clear as possible from Skywars territory. Maybe dogs just don’t like pigs. Or maybe it’s his overprotective instincts kicking in at the sight of a dangerous man.

The thing is, now he’s almost always at Bedwars. Which is where Tommy likes to hang out, if he’s not at the TNT Minigames lobby. Avoiding him is a little more difficult, and avoiding his rumours is even moreso.

And besides that, Tommy is - well, it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that he’s interested in the rumours. Or, curious.

Because nowadays, all he can think about is walking up to Technoblade and asking if it’s true. If you really can lose your Soul animal.

(If it can be permanent).

He daydreams of what Technoblade would say. Sometimes it’s _“Oh, those silly rumours? That’s ridiculous. Stuff like that always settles down when your Soul animal gets older. Don’t worry about it.”_

Sometimes Tommy is more worried. Sometimes he’s _terrified_. Sometimes Technoblade looks him in the eye with his dark, beady little orbs and tells him: _“It started off slow, at first. Only ever once in a while. Then as I got older, he started disappearing more and more, for longer stints, until one day he just… didn’t come back.”_

Wolf’s head shifts as he watches the great Technoblade cross the lobby, eyes narrowed and invisible to almost everyone but Tommy.

Even though they’re made up conversations that Tommy’s never had, even though Technoblade has probably never said those words nor ever will, even though Technoblade maybe doesn’t even sound like that - it catches the air in his throat. His skull begins to feel like a cage he has to suffer inside of with his own emotions.

The days when he imagines those conversations with Technoblade, Tommy goes to bed and feels sick to his stomach. He doesn’t wake up until Tubbo busts down his door and drags him out for fresh bread and homemade honey.

Sometimes it helps.

* * *

The third time Wolf disappears, instead of lying in bed and doing nothing, he decides to scream at the world.

He convinces himself to be angry, instead of acknowledging the ache in that small hollow in his chest - the one Wolf fits neatly into. The one where he _should_ fit neatly into, anyway.

“What’s up with you today?” Tubbo accuses, after he insults his Soul animal for the fourth time that morning. “You don’t need to take it out on Sam.”

It’s stupid - it’s so, so stupid, because crying isn’t _bad_ , he just - he doesn’t think it would be useful in this situation. So when he feels the heat build up behind his eyes, he shoves Tubbo away, and demands, in his most authoritative and contemptible tone: “Oh, fuck _off_ , Tubbo! I don’t need your stupid advice or your idiotic goddamned parrot! I don’t fuckin’ - need _you!”_

He knows he doesn’t mean it at the same time as it comes out of his mouth. He knew, even thinking up the words, that they weren’t what he meant. He says it anyway.

He climbs down the observatory, and resists the urge to look back.

Wolf turns up midafternoon that same day, six hours later, no worse for wear - as always. Spitefully, he ruminates. He imagines telling Wolf everything - he imagines telling him: _it’s like you don’t care._

Maybe he doesn’t.

Tommy takes him up to his favourite Bedwars lobby, and imagines seeing Technoblade there. He imagines Wolf’s reaction and thinks - _good. Let him feel a fraction of what I feel every time he goes wherever he goes when he’s not with me._

(In his head, he knows no one else in the world loses their Soul animal, not even some pig with a sword).

(No one else in the world is like him).

* * *

The evening is a dull lavender, with dark clouds simmering far overhead in a broiling tempest. Down by the floating islands, the air is eerily still in comparison. Most Bedwars players have gone for cover by the teleporters, waiting for friends to finish their games or for the storm to pass.

Tommy thinks that’s bullshit.

In fact, so does Wolf. They both think that it is bullshit. And so, together, they are set up in the misty rain, a chunk of crumbly clay in hand, at one of the taller terracotta islands in the parkour route. In fact, it probably doesn’t even count as rain. It is so un-rainy, that he could positively describe it as fog. Fog, and not rain.

(Nostalgia drizzles blearily from his chest to his belly).

As always, he stamps a foot against the edge of an outcropping, and down come the splinters of terracotta, skittering across the ground. This time, they are a dark brown, and not reddish-orange.

Tommy graphs out his best attempt at a hopscotch arena (ignoring the Tubbo-shaped voice that chirps against the term). It’s a little wonky - definitely not as neat or as elaborate as he used to do when he was younger, with his friends. Wolf doesn’t seem to mind too much, mostly just happy to finally beat Tommy at something again, probably. Like a traitor.

Electric adrenaline shoots through his veins, sending his nerves into overdrive for a fraction of a second. It’s so thrilling, he almost misses what caused it - the distant crackle of thunder, echoing away from behind him. Seconds later, lighting streaks down from the sky, spitting sparks and splitting away into the void. He watches the light swallow itself, like it had never been there in the first place.

He peers over the edge of the island in wonder, and slight fear. But mostly, he feels the energy building in his chest, something wild and huge. Something that relishes in the waves of adrenaline and fright that wrack his body. It bursts from his throat in a loud bout of laughter.

And then another crack of thunder splits the air, much closer this time. Lightning fractures the evening sky, barely one hundred blocks out.

The wind, which had been distantly spiralling in the stratosphere only moments before, rushes up from below, sending shudders through the terracotta island Tommy’d set up on. His hair goes flying with it, temporarily unaffected by gravity as it floats wildly in the gale. Wolf tugs on his sleeve, away from the edge.

Intrepid zephyrs gallop around them like errant tides, roaring and turning him deaf to all the noise around him. His cheeks and ears and fingers sting with static and cold.

He spins to look at Wolf, whose pupils are blown wide, panting visibly, although no noise comes from him. There’s something exhilarating about standing there, in the face of something so powerful, something he couldn’t even hope to touch, and not being able to do anything about it. Most of all, it’s incredible to be breathtaken with his most favourite person in the world right by his side. 

Above the din, thunder bellows out, and as if on cue, the wind erupts once more. This time, the island tremors like an earthquake, and he falls to his knees next to Wolf, who digs his claws into the nearby patch of dirt. On second glance, he actually looks pretty terrified. 

Lightning blazes ahead of him, and he has to turn his head into Wolf’s side to keep from blinding himself. It’s so close, he can smell the sizzle of earth just briefly, before the wind carries the scent away in a screaming whistle. His tingling fingers go numb, and his ears quickly follow.

With a small, delayed pinprick of panic, he realises that they should probably be getting out of here. With a slightly larger jab of panic, he realises that he doesn’t know how.

Getting into fights with other people is one thing. Getting into fights with literal forces of nature is quite another.

The earth rumbles below them, and Wolf sends a small panicked glance his way, right before a wooden plank goes soaring off the edge and into the void. It misses them by a hair.

A short whimper rips away from his throat. The wind spirals into tiny javelins, spitting in his eyes and leaving them raw so that he has to close them. His breath steals itself away from his throat, and he realises with a start that breathing is becoming a little more difficult than he remembered. He clings to Wolf’s fur when he feels his calves lifting eerily into the air. Something galvanic seizes him by the veins.

The image of the lighting strike from before - collapsing in on itself as the void engulfed it - propels itself through his skull. He imagines the wooden plank that had just soared over their heads seconds ago - what happened to it?

Blinking, he shakes the thoughts from his head and clutches at the earth as it rumbles again under them. He’ll be fine. He’s got the checkpoint, he’s fine. Even if he falls, he’ll just turn right back up right here. And Wolf will be fine, he’s only ever where Tommy is ( _except when he’s not,_ mutters a traitorous voice). It’s not like he’s a properly living creature.

The thought crumbles apart when, across the island, he spots a chunk of land splitting away and collapsing into the open air from the corner of his eye. Dangling roots and grains of dirt skitter around in the wind where the island’s innards are exposed. More than anything, he feels it, rather than sees it.

But it strikes a thought in Tommy, because - what happens if the checkpoint is hurled away into the void? What if it’s destroyed? 

What then?

Because Tommy’s never died before. Not yet.

He doesn’t play Skywars or Bedwars or anything like that - he plays TNT Minigames and party games that teleport you away in time before anyone gets hurt. He wins at TNT run and messes up in the party games that Tubbo likes and flies through coloured hoops on chicken-back.

He’s never died before, but he’s heard things. He’d heard that it hurts; that the pains swarms like colonies of tireless ants crawling about under your skin; that it turns like a rotor in your guts, spelling pain against your organs and the ends of your toes and the tips of your fingers and the crown of your head. He recalls the short scream he’d heard while wandering the Housing lobby as someone awoke in their bed.

He doesn’t know if any of it’s true. He has no idea, in fact. He hasn’t met any adults who would tell him, he wasn’t raised with anyone to impart knowledge on him. All he has are his friends - and by extension, their Soul animals - and his own Soul animal. Even if his soulmate knows what it’s like, Wolf couldn’t tell him.

A vicious _crack_ sounds from above him, and as if summoned by his own irrational thinking, more slabs of wood come tumbling down - wood that had been previously supported by the first plank, presumably. He observes as it - bulkier than a single plank - sinks heavier through the air, giving the illusion of thrashing as if it were alive.

He watches, almost frozen in place, as it trundles in another direction entirely than he’d considered earlier. It looms above them, almost as if in slow motion.

Instead of swooping harmlessly over their heads, it heads straight for them.

Wolf shoves at him weakly, too focused on holding them both tied to the ground to be able to do much. A daunting thought glances through the gaps in his mind (the ones that aren’t occupied with _fear-panic-overwhelmed_ ), like light peeking out from under a door: which is worse - dying by wooden structure, or by void?

The hilarity that he even has to think it, that this is something he has to worry about - it almost leaves him feeling sick, on top of everything else.

Just this morning, he’d been joking around with Tubbo, like always (until he fucked it up). 

Now, he’s about to be crushed to death by slabs of wood three times his size. Or battered by slabs of wood three times his size so hard, he’s sent flying into the void, just like the rest of this island.

He wonders what dying is like. He wonders what he’ll tell the others that it’s like, when he wakes up in bed, gasping and screaming, Wolf by his side like nothing had happened.

He dreads what dying is like.

Later, he’ll think - “that’s it; that’s the thought that saved me.” - because in that moment, a new set of claws snags him by the hem of his shirt and he goes tumbling to the side, falling against the ground with his face to the sky. He watches the wood soar overhead, harmless.

He feels himself choke on air as he bellows to the dark, cloudy sky. “FUCKIN’ HELL!”

To his left, an unharmed Wolf, panting against the wind as if he needs the air. To his right, a badger with two white stripes down its snout and beady black eyes - and a single, crooked-footed crow.


	2. Of a tune, of a colour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well.. this was going to be the last chapter, but i realised i wanted to put more emphasis on the Tommy and Tubbo relationship. so now it's gonna be 3 or 4 chapters, i think. i also updated the tags!
> 
> next week will be my last week of school (give or take a few days) so hopefully i will have more time to write and upload faster :)

There’s something eerie about the way a crow can look at you, Tommy decides, the morning after the storm.

Despite collapsing into bed last night, exhausted - he’d still woken up this morning with the sun, as always. The badger was gone by the time he’d woken up, but the crow still pottered about, feet bouncing ever so slightly on the mattress.

He turns his gaze to the ceiling again, watching as the cracks in the recesses blend together to make nonsensical patterns. He imagines the shape of a huge, dark-furred dog outlined there, in the ribbon-curled grain of the wood. He can almost see the shape of a head peering out, a ring where the eye would be.

But the real thing is right here, shedding hairs across his blankets and dozing in the shafts of sunlight that turns his fur a grungy brown. He lies on his side, chest rising and falling like rain in chaotic wind. For a moment - the light blacks out, and he is soaked to the bone - and then he’s back in his room. It smells of warm fur and of breath from an open-mouthed yawn.

He has to strain to turn his inspection back to the crow, which regards him with a single dark, thoughtful eye. It reflects gold in the morning light, his tiny pinprick of pupil almost swallowed by the sunshine. He’s stood in the crook between his throat and chest, which swithers between inhale and exhale, so as not to disturb its visitor. When he tilts his head, the light drains away, and Tommy’s staring into a shadowed pool of hickory brown.

A crooked claw raises itself, and Tommy watches as if in slow motion, as it reaches out to tap him on the forehead. “What the fuck…?” he mumbles, rubbing at his eyes. He feels another tap, this time on his raised wrist.

He’d be concerned if this animal (possibly another Soul animal? He’s heard crows can be really intelligent, so maybe not) hadn’t had a part in saving his life yesterday evening. He’s almost certain that there’s no danger here.

After a few impatient taps, the crow settles back onto both feet, ruffles himself as if to right his feathers, and then hops to the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Wolf flutter his ears, only half paying attention.

With a huff, Tommy rolls over and lays an arm and a leg across Wolf’s side, who flops one bright hazel eye open, and then slips it closed again when there’s nothing important going on. Lazy fucker.

Crow, meanwhile, lets out a bleating cry. He’s probably trying to get his attention, but Tommy really can’t be bothered. He’s feeling small, and drowsy, and it smells so strongly of sleep he can almost taste its flavour on his tongue. He’s tired. He’s hungry, too - but mostly tired.

Abruptly, he feels a weight land on his shoulder. Then, equally as abruptly, a sharp pinch on the shell of his ear. A yelp escapes between his teeth, followed by a short curse. 

With a groan, he flips over, turning an affronted look on the crow - who clumsily flutters to the ground after his perch had been disrupted. “Did you just bite me? What the fuck, man?”

Crow tilts his head, catching a beam of sun across the feathers on his head, and somehow manages to level him with a look of disapproval. “What? You want me to get up? You want food, or - or something?” He shifts his legs over the side of the bed.

Crow gives another cry, bounces through the doorway, and disappears from view. Tommy almost wants to ignore him, but Wolf lets out a low groan and rolls onto his front. He watches the empty doorway with distaste, and Tommy can’t help but agree. “Guess we’ve got no choice, huh?”

Together, they brace the morning and relative cold of the rest of the house, which turns a darker brindle as they leave the light of the sun. They find Crow at the foot of the door, having apparently been too anxious to leave them alone for long, despite his annoyingly brazen exit. False confidence, ‘nd all that.

He yawns his way through the house, a bird hopping at his feet and a dog at his side. Briefly he wonders how a stranger would find this situation - a kid and his two Soul animals. Unless Crow isn’t a Soul animal - in which case this’d be awkward. Maybe he really is just looking for food.

When they reach the kitchen, the bird carefully flaps onto a chest just visible from the pantry doorway - or the storage room, on days when he’s not making food. It’s multi-purpose - food _and_ tools.

They crowd into the cramped kitchen, and Crow guides them through making toasted cheese sandwiches. Well, he guides Tommy through making toasted cheese sandwiches. Wolf doesn’t exactly have opposable thumbs.

He guesses that whoever this Soul animal is, happens to be good at cooking or something. Because he has literally never seen a normal animal know how to make food (and also Crow accidentally dropped a wooden spoon - the closest Tommy has to a spatula - halfway through carrying it over to the smoker when it slipped through his unexpectedly incorporeal claws).

The sun is already midway to noon by the time they’ve got something edible on a wooden plate, even with Crow’s supervision. Two half-burned toast slices and cheese in the middle. Having made it himself, it seems so easy - but he’s never been able to do it before. And he’s not sure he’d be able to replicate the result.

Abruptly, he wonders what it’s like to have parents to show you how to do things. He wonders what it’s like to have parents who do things _for_ you.

He wonders what it’s like to have a curfew, and conversations around the dinner table about how your day went in the evenings. He wonders what other things families with parents get up to - what doesn’t he know about? What is he missing? The little details he’ll never get to know. What’s it like?

He stares down at the cheese-toasty that he made himself. It steams pleasantly.

He wonders, if he’d had parents - would they have stopped him from going out in that storm? Would they have scolded him?

Gone out to get him when he was in trouble?

Something bitter rises in him. It’s almost enough to make him choke, when the taste erupts on his tongue and spills imaginary word splatter across his outstretched hands. He counts each letter and ignores whatever meaning they try to express to him. A paper-thin grin cuts a wedge out of his face.

The closest he’s got to parents are a trio of Soul animals, and they never stay for long.

Crow is gone before another hour passes, and it’s only then that he remembers he was supposed to meet up with Tubbo hours ago.

He didn’t come looking.

* * *

The sun crawls by at an excruciating pace. He sits in the dirt at the foot of the bent steps that lead up to his house, staring into space. The sun is nearly halfway through its arc over the sky, and Tubbo still hasn’t appeared. He wonders what he’s doing. Is he in trouble, or - or did he really mess up yesterday?

He tries to think back, burying his fingers deep into Wolf’s thick fur. It’s all a blur up until the evening - the last time they saw each other seems so long ago. Could it really have been yesterday morning that he’d woken up without Wolf, and been inexplicably angry? The memory of vicious fury sinks into his bones like a heavy weight, but it doesn’t incite anything in him.

He remembers calling Sam names, he remembers purposely antagonising Tubbo until they’d both gotten angry enough to storm off. He remembers the simmering rage he’d stewed in as he stormed through crowds and back as the hours passed, waiting restlessly for Wolf to return. It’s all drowned out by the haze of the storm and three Soul animals, who’d somehow saved his life.

It’s not like saving lives mattered much in this world. He’d just respawn, anyway.

A caustic flavour rises in his throat.

_Technoblade_ has probably died already. He’s probably respawned countless times - and he can’t even manage the once without summoning a veritable army of Soul animals to protect him. Technoblade doesn’t even have one.

Supposedly.

He flops back onto the steps, giving a short wheeze when he knocks his back against the edge a little too hard. Wolf looks up, gives him a onceover, then goes back to watching stray wind flicker through the trees dotted around. He sighs and stares at the sky.

Thin white clouds drift gently across the blue expanse, too wide to fit in a picture or catch in an eyeful. It’s strangely easy to watch them go by, even with the memories from yesterday fresh in his mind. There’s not a shred of evidence for last night’s experience.

He tilts his head just slightly against the wood to look at Wolf, who’s not paying him scrap of attention - he’s not sure if that’s good or bad.

He hasn’t seemed terribly bothered about any of this. Not the disappearances, not the strange Soul animals that keep appearing and disappearing. Maybe he knows what’s going on - maybe he’s always known.

Maybe Tommy’s soulmate knows, too. Has his soulmate met the badger and the crow?

Not for the first time, he wonders what his own Soul’s representation is like. What animal did it take shape as? Is it anything like him? He thinks it would be, but he’s heard of Soul animals not being like the Souls they represent - in the cases where people have learned well to hide their innermost emotions. He doesn’t think that applies to him though.

“Hey, Wolf?” Wolf looks up, turning his head to ponder him with one eye, a mild expression painted over his snout. Over the years, being able to tell how Wolf is feeling has become second nature. “What’s going on with you? And - who are the badger and Crow?”

Wolf huffs, getting to his feet and standing on long legs. He towers above Tommy at this angle, nearly blocking out the sun. Every time Tommy thinks he can’t get any taller - he does.

He hopes for his own growth spurt soon; it gets old being the shortest in the friend group. Plus, being able to lean over Tubbo for once would be fun.

Something like guilt grinds in his gut. “Tubbo…”

Wolf whuffs to catch his attention again, and Tommy looks up from the sky he’d gone back to staring at. Wolf twists his neck to gaze back at him from behind the top of his long spine. His tail drifts faintly from side to side, as if to gently encourage him to get up. He does.

“Where are we going?” Tommy asks, a few moments after they leave the Housing area. The main portal looms above them, shedding a faint purple glow against the ground and surrounding buildings. Wolf is cast in an indigo shade, his eyes swimming with lilac. Then, he continues onward, towards the marketplace.

Pale stone buildings march out ahead of them, dipped in orange and nearly glowing in the afternoon light. Wooden stalls crowd the streets, dotted with flowers and paintings and food and other wares; vendors calling out to passersby in bulk. He catches bits and pieces of what they say as Wolf leads the way through the market (he must have become visible, because the crowd parts easily for such a huge animal).

“Herbs, herbs! Get ‘em fresh, get ‘em dry! Herbs - !”

“ - Good for your hearts! Never feel - !”

They pull to a stop directly outside of a stall, and Wolf looks back at him expectantly. It’s a squat stone building, shared by a couple other vendors from the other sides of the building. This side boasts showers of daffodils and a pair of well-cared for cacti on the counter, as well as a green and white striped awning. A warm shade douses the area like dye in water.

A young woman with a bluetit on her shoulder stands in front of a row of music discs, all vinyl except for the plastic centres, which glimmer in the sunlight that catches them. Twisting vines of ivy grow up the wall on a set of crisscrossing sticks probably intended to hang the discs on. She catches his eye, gives him a slanted grin and gestures about herself, as if to welcome him to look around, and then goes back to tending to her Soul animal.

He nods back at her, then looks at Wolf, who’s planted himself solidly under the two cacti. He looks terribly pleased with himself, if slightly anxious. Probably cutting through that crowd of people was a bit stressful. Tommy scratches him behind the ears for the effort.

“What do you want, huh?” He mutters to Wolf, but no reply seems forthcoming. Since he’s a dog, and all.

Wolf gives a weak bark and gestures to the discs in card slips lined up on the counter. Taking the hint, he picks out the first one that looks red and offers it to Wolf, who inclines his head. “You want this thing?”

_If you want to listen to anything, just put it in that jukebox over there,_ comes a voice. He almost jumps out of his skin at how clear it sounds in his head against the din of the daily crowd (especially at this time. Why are they here again?) It takes a good moment for him to realise that it did come from inside of his head.

“Uh - ” Oh right. Mutes. Those who don’t speak out loud - they learn to talk without speaking.

He looks at her, mouth startled open. She points to the jukebox at the other end of the counter. He swallows, nods, mutters a quick curse, then laughs to calm his nerves.

They play the song, although he has no idea why. How does Wolf even know about this place? It seems like the kind of place Tubbo would like. Maybe… maybe they could come here together, after.

Wolf sits diligently at his side, and they strain to hear music over voices overlapping all around them. It’s as the beat drops that he remembers something Tubbo had said not too long ago - about wanting to learn ukulele. And he knows that the old man who taught him to care for bees lets him play piano every now and again.

Tubbo likes music. What better way to apologise than this?

“Hear anything you like?” A gravelly voice rumbles behind him. He startles to his feet with a gout of laughter, and Wolf does the same beside him.

A long face stares back at him, skin coloured in the leafy pattern of a creeper dipped in blue. The face belongs to a man in an apron and tunic, and he’d cut an imposing figure if it weren’t for the river otter behind him doing somersaults in the air, as if it were swimming through water.

Wolf stands at attention at his side, but doesn’t offer much hostility beyond an aggressive tail-wag. It’s probably safe.

“Uh, yeah. I just - wanted to get a present for my friend.”

The man considers him thoughtfully, his wide lidless creeper eyes turning from him to Wolf. “I see.” If he notices Tommy’s faint fear, he doesn’t mention it. “That’s a vigilant Soul animal you got there, if you don’t mind my saying.”

Tommy laughs again. He’s not really sure why. “Yeah, he’s just like that.”

He forks over the coins he’d gotten from TNT minigames, and they get the red disc. Almost belatedly, he realises that it’s the same colour as his own shirt sleeves.

As they’re leaving, he catches sight of the bluetit and the otter, swimming in the air together, playing. Or dancing, he can’t be sure.

They look like they’re having fun.

* * *

He checks the observatory first, of course - the sunlight filtering like kaleidoscope colours through the panels of glass around the top floor. He scales the telescope just like he always does, even if the feeling is different from the predawn emptiness he’s used to. 

When he breaks out above the shelter of the building, he’s instantly accosted with bolts of wind that cast his shirt above his face. He has to fight to pat it down.

He peers over the lip of the scope, squinting against the sunlight. If Tubbo had been here, he’s not anymore.

The next place he goes to is Tubbo’s house. He hasn’t been blocked from entering the property, which he takes as a good sign, but the place is empty. He’s pretty sure.

Tubbo’s place is much larger and more fancy than Tommy’s, and (although he’ll never admit it out loud) much prettier. Streaks of stone bricks rise from the ground in pillars of grey, followed by spruce planks and logs that make up the bulk of the building. The windows are plentiful and large - much improved from the early attempts Tommy had nicked from him in good fun when they were kids. The house is hardly the most captivating, though.

Gardens of well kept flowers drape the ground, lined with handcrafted bee boxes. Woodsmoke drifts along in the breeze from faint stacks of grey that drawl from the ground around the bees. On a rack in front of the house are several rows of blown glass bottles, most of which are empty and ready to be used.

It’s a starkly different atmosphere from his own place, but he can tell almost instantly - Tubbo’s not here.

The bees frolick in the grass as usual, but the sky is empty of birdsong, and all of the little perches crafted for Sam are vacant. Not even the door is open.

There are a couple other stops he makes along the way - from lobbies to various minigames that he knows Tubbo likes - but at the end of the day, he winds up at his own house; empty handed but for the striped red disc in his fist. He resolves to check in with Badlinu tomorrow to see if he’ll turn up.

* * *

Moonlight candles the room in a cool glow. The wind that’s been building and receding for days on end is silent - not even the trees make a sound. Even still, it’s like his thoughts fill up the void where things should have been.

Sound clatters about in tangible lightscapes, flittering like butterflies and swooping jauntily like feathers in a harsh wind. Conversations he’s had with Tubbo over the years - random tidbits he remembers for no reason at all - squalls of noise from empty space where Sam would have been. The world seems to condense into this one room; his whole life related on scales of invisible sound from the perspective of everyone else.

It’s stupid. He’s so, so stupid.

The thing is, he’s never felt like he’s needed parents. He has his friends, and his Soul animal, and their Soul animals. And Tubbo learns things from people he asks, and he tells Tommy, and Badlinu learns things from watching, and Tommy learns things from doing. And they get by.

But Tommy’s never found himself in a situation like this before, because it’s never him doing the chasing, or the searching, or the fearing.

That’s Tubbo’s job.

Tubbo - smart, boisterous Tubbo, with spills upon spills of creativity and kindness; and a well of wild cunning that just doesn’t stop growing. It’s his plans that gets them out of trouble with the Admins. It’s him that carves hiding places and escape routes out of dizzying panic and pre-preparation.

Tommy tracks interests, hunts his favourite things - proceeds, exceeds, succeeds - fails and falls down and trips and gets back up again; he always has his friends’ backs. But he’s the one that cuts the path ahead.

When he can’t get up by himself, Tubbo lies in the dirt next to him. When Tubbo can’t get up, who’s job is it then?

It’s Tommy. It’s got to be Tommy.

He has to chase Tubbo - find him in a dirt patch somewhere, and sit in that dirt patch next to him. Inevitably, they will watch the sun rise and fall like breathing, and then they will both get up in the morning. That’s how it has to go, right?

If he had parents, what would they say? If he had brothers and sisters, what would they do? 

A stringy cloud clasps its yawning mouth over the shine of the moon, yellow enough to be the sun if it weren’t ten times as dim.

Where would Tubbo be?

* * *

Tommy has never played Skywars before, and he doesn’t exactly intend to right now. He doesn’t know what he’s doing here, precisely - he doesn’t exactly have a plan.

Wolf steps away from the teleporter with gruff grumbles of annoyance, but otherwise doesn’t seem too unnerved. Tommy wanders the courtyard of the hub island, feeling the rounded rock of familiar walls he remembers faintly from his childhood. A time from before Wolf began his restless bouts in the area.

It’s almost nostalgic - he remembers daring other kids to play, back before they knew to be afraid of dying. He remembers frosty mornings, skating on the paved stone ground, fog rising above them in drifts like dunes of snow; Autumn evenings playing hide and seek in the dark; playing pranks on newcomers that always got them into trouble. That time he’d raced on the parkour with some other kids and won because Wolf somehow found the best routes.

Puffs of white appear in front of him when he sighs, as if to remind him of those distant memories.

The night crowd is much quieter than the day one, and it seems to settle Wolf’s nerves a little. Crowds anywhere can diffuse a hum of nervousness around him, but especially Skywars. Especially any place touched by Technoblade, he’s noticed - but that must be coincidence, or else Technoblade hangs around areas with dangerous people. It’s not unlikely.

When they pass around the backs of the teleporters, Wolf slows to a stop. Tommy watches intently as he stares up at the _Solo Mode_ teleporter, the glow that wrings the area of its darkness catching like liquid moonlight in Wolf’s eyes. He sits amicably at the foot of it, and stares, strangely occupied.

It’s not like Tommy’s ever played Skywars before. The thing is, Wolf’s always seemed to know this area the best, like an instinct that even Tommy doesn’t recognise in him. The thought’s occurred to him before, but perhaps… perhaps his soulmate has played.

Maybe his soulmate is on Hypixel right now, playing Skywars or wandering the night streets of the main hub, or watching the moon climb the sky as if observing the dream of a world. He wonders, if he were to look at the sky right now - would he be looking at the same sky as his soulmate?

It’s a curious thought, because for all that Tommy has lived here his entire life, there’s no way that he could have met everyone that’s ever been on the server. The locals, sure, and the other kids like him who grew up here because there was nowhere else _to_ grow up.

Unless they wanted to try their hand at building their own world; a New World. The idea is stupid, he knows; it’s always been a dangerous idea for kids who don’t know what they’re doing. It’s still a nice thought, though.

(Tommy inherited nothing from wherever he came from, just like everyone else he knows, but that doesn’t stop him from wondering, sometimes. He imagines a world for him, and him only - or a world for just him and Tubbo).

(It’s a pointless dream, because he could never do it, but - the thought straddles his mind, at times).

And then Wolf moves on.

With nothing better to do, they take to the parkour, diving underground and mindlessly going through the motions. The muscle memory comes to him in fits and starts - avoid the outcropping there, no big deal if you trip here - and so on. It’s one of the easier parkour courses, and the first he completed, ever.

The dark of the caves splits away under curls of moonlight, but it’s still dim enough that he nearly misses the figure crouched on a tall platform of moss and undead leaves. It takes him a moment to realise who it could possibly be, and even then, only because Wolf stops dead in his tracks to stare up at whoever it is. Wolf’s nostrils flare in increments, eyes not moving from their target.

He can read a room.

The canyon between him and Tubbo breathes with the gravity of spinning wind. He’d thought, maybe - but he hadn’t expected to actually find him here, under the shelter of dreary rock and damp tunnels from their childhood. Shafts of subdued yellow skirt the opening from above, turning brown hair to tawny gold, green shirt to dull orange.

Sam notices him first, eyes narrowed. They glitter with intelligence in the way that no spark of light could hope to replicate. His grey feathers ruffle in a familiar way - something he’s been doing since Tommy could first see him, and probably before that, too. He remembers Crow doing the same thing this morning - or yesterday morning. His claws knead Tubbo’s shoulder pad gently.

Their eyes catch one another all at once, and time freezes for a split second, as if to capture this snapshot in memory forever. Everything bursts into view in a way that he hadn’t noticed before - the way the rock around them shines dully, the way the growths of moss give way beneath his feet, the way Tubbo’s face is shadowed from the backlighting of the moon.

Tubbo inhales, and the movement causes his eyes to catch in the light, just barely enough for Tommy to see the glistening that simmers there. Are those tears? Emptiness in his chest curdles into guilt.

Had he done that?

They stare at one another for incomprehensible amounts of time, watching and feeling and looking. The world seems to slip away around him, dissipating into pieces of rock and moss and outcroppings where new birds’ nests appeared from nowhere every spring. It’s almost totally quiet, except for at one point when a loose rock tumbles from a ledge somewhere.

Time blinks back into view when Tubbo stands, arms half ahead of him and half behind, as if unsure of how to paint his intentions. The moon hasn’t moved an inch – or else he’s hallucinating. And maybe he is, because – for once – it’s Tubbo that takes the step forward first.

Tommy stands, stock-still, as Tubbo bounds down the parkour. When he reaches Tommy’s platform, they stand equally as still. He’s never felt so alert in his life.

Wolf adjusts his footing and steps away to stare down at the distant ground, but Sam doesn’t move from Tubbo’s side. This close, he can feel the heat from Tubbo’s breath, and realises with a start how cold he is. His fingers shiver unconsciously in tandem with the thought.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts, watching fog bestow itself upon the air between them. It dissipates within moments. “I -” His voice cracks around the word, and he stops to clear his throat. He has no idea what he’s doing. He has no clue what he wants to say - except for the million and one things that never seem quite right - never seem to fit - darting around in his brain.

Tubbo is still, but for the deep breaths that bend his shoulders up and down. When he blinks, he blinks slowly, and the thin glaze of what has to be tears twinkles in and out of view.

“I learned how to make cheese toasties.”

Heartbeats pass like stringent music, loud in the echoing quiet of an empty chamber. It takes him three rhythmic pounds to realise that he was the one to say those words, and scrambles to make them make sense. “Do you, uh - are you hungry?”

Something breaks open in Tubbo’s mild expression, something like a cracked egg, and a not-quite smile flickers into place across his lips. “Sure.”

* * *

For the second time ever, he makes a toasted cheese sandwich. It is ten times worse than the last.

The third attempt is better, but only because Sam picks at his ear with his beak to remind him to turn it over in the smoker. Tubbo grins when it happens, and it’s such a lovely sight that Tommy almost thinks that the whole ordeal is worth it (he was right; replicating the results of the previous morning on his own is close to impossible).

Fire stirs in his gut when he sits down at the table, and Tubbo sits next to him without pause. Like they always do.

He takes a bite from the toasty, and imagines that’s the cause for it.

Stringy cheese loops lazily from his teeth to the toasty, stretching and stretching as he tries to fit it all in his mouth. He finds himself laughing when it conjures the mental image of a clown with endless handkerchiefs. He almost jumps when Tubbo joins in.

Hey stare at one another, burned toasties between them. Silence drops into place between them, hanging on the knife’s edge of being awkward.

“These suck,” Tubbo announces, eventually.

“Wh - you can’t say that!”

“Why not?”

“You - because I made it for you! Bitch!”

Tubbo laughs. “So?” and then takes another bite anyway. “They’re burned.”

Tommy curses at him with a snarl. He sighs, then sinks back into his seat. He almost wishes Wolf were here, so he could sink his fingers into his thick fur, even though Tommy knows that he doesn’t particularly deal well with strong emotions.

He takes another bite. “Yeah, they do kinda suck.”

They sit in silence, working their jaws through chewy cheese and over-crispy bread. The darkness shudders in the corners of the room against the dying glints of waning charcoal. He thinks about lighting a candle or a torch, but figures the moon will be light enough.

He’s not too sure he wants Tubbo to see the way he knows emotions are shivering across his face, anyways.

The silence squirms under his skin, lighting a dangerous fuse. The next time he bites, he bites _hard_ , drawing his head to the side in a sharp motion that he’s used to seeing Wolf do when he wants to tear something in two.

“Listen -”

“I know I -”

They stop in the same moment, their breath coursing in streams between them like emboldened emotions they’d previously held hidden. Something burns behind Tommy’s eyes.

“I missed you.” Tubbo mumbles quietly.

Tommy nods. He stares at his hands - at the way they wrinkle between his thumb and forefinger, the tiny moles that pepper his fingers with brown. He gathers his voice to his throat, forcing the lump that resides there aside. “I missed you, too.”

He inhales, and his fingers shake. Blindly, he reaches for a hug - and, equally as blindly, Tubbo reciprocates. He feels the way Tubbo’s eyelashes squeeze shut against his cheek, the flicker of hair that tickles his forehead. The breath stuttered with relieved laughter, the knobbly fingers that squeeze his hands, the hot breath that mingles between them; undercut with the scent of melted cheese.

He feels the now distinctive sensation of a peck at the shell of his ear, and exhales. “Yeah, I - I didn’t mean it. Sorry, Sam.” Sam gives a satisfied, swooping cry, and flutters away to - somewhere else. Tubbo chuckles against his temple.

Eventually, they part, and something giddy rises in Tommy when he sees the look of assuaged fear in Tubbo’s face. It’s kind of idiotic, but he’d almost been scared that Tubbo hadn’t missed him as much as he did.

His voice is raw against his next words, but he soldiers on with a swallow. “So much shit has gone down since last time. Seriously.”

His expression doesn’t waver for a second, except to allow a grin. “Like what? It’s only been, like - a day. Or a day and a half.” 

And it had only been a day - but it felt so much longer. Between Wolf disappearing, their argument, nearly dying for the first time, meeting a new Soul animal and reuniting with one he’d met only once before, learning to make a meal (that isn’t store-bought bread with Tubbo’s honey), their visit to the main Hub, the search he’d spent all day doing, their midnight reunion, and the sleepless night before it - visiting his childhood playground. 

He snorts. “You would not believe the kind of shit.”

Tubbo yawns, a gesture which Tommy unthinkingly returns. Tubbo smiles. “Well, we can catch up tomorrow. Mind if I sleep over?”

Parents are stupid, Tommy tries to convice himself that night as he falls into bed with four other creatures, warmer than he’s been in what feels like eons. He hasn’t needed them before, and he didn’t need them now.

It turned out okay, in the end. He figured it out for himself.

He doesn’t need them. He doesn’t.

* * *

The morning awakens on the horizon with birdsong, a drowsy sun tossing lazy sunlight across the bedsheets in an almost perfect replica of the previous. Wolf groans in his ear, rolling over to collapse over the top of him. It looks like sleep deprived delirium, but when he gives a sloppy lick down the shell of his ear, Tommy knows it’s just his flavour of rough affection. It smells of dust and sleep and warm wood. 

For breakfast, they use Tubbo’s sage honey and the last of Tommy’s bread, and Sam scrounges them each up a tomato from somewhere.

They sit on the floor of his bedroom with a red disc and a wooden jukebox Tubbo crafts from wood and a small gem Tommy came across a while back.

Dust settles around them in the shafts of sunlight, warm and golden. Wolf settles on his belly with crossed front paws behind him, and they lean against each other in silent companionship. Tubbo leans over the jukebox with a chin buried in crossed arms.

They play _Chirp_ on repeat for hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also do you guys have any thoughts on making this a series, where i'd write extra events or events from other people's perspectives? 
> 
> i have a couple ideas already, for wilbur and some of the others in sbi mostly, but also one for tubbo and his soulmate probably


	3. That blunted mouth, those tender teeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! I was having some trouble with a particular confrontation in this chapter that I'm sure you'll recognise when you see.
> 
> Some of you mentioned you'd like there to be a series, so I've added that. Subscribe to the series if you want to read more when I update that :)
> 
> Sorry for any mistakes! When I've written and uploaded everything, i think I'll go back through everything and edit it. I'm sure I've missed some around here.

The sky is large enough to taste, several evenings later. Tommy sticks out his tongue, and imagines its flavour - raspberry horizon and red bell pepper stars; perhaps a minty aftertaste. The thought blends into the skin of his lips until they sting and turn rosy pink. He bathes in the familiar feeling of loud noise in a quiet place.

The sun has long since gone down, but the sky is still a bright blue across the mountainous horizon, and above him, the stars flicker and blink to the imaginary tune of his thoughts. It’s chilly outside, but Wolf is a warm weight at his side - right up until he isn’t.

And that’s when things start to get chaotic.

Over the years, he’s had different experiences of Wolf disappearing. Sometimes he’s angry, sometimes he’s sad, sometimes he just feels empty. He remembers back to that very first occasion when it happened - the evening he’d spent on the steps of the Bedwars lobby, the afternoon he and Badlinu had spent searching and looking, waiting and _hoping_ for Wolf to come back. The throbbing clench in his teeth; the acrid betrayal; the dreaded scream that sat hollowly in his chest and _wailed_.

Uselessly, his head snaps around, trying to spot - something. Anything. Even the bare flash of a drifting hair in the dwindling light, or the glimmer of a wet nose. Anything.

But of course, there is nothing. Only the distant burble of water sloshing against stone; the barbed trees backlit with darkness; the natter of distant voices from beyond the hedge maze; the quiet scent of woodsmoke and steel. Birds titter at one another quietly in branches too distant to see their blurry shapes. He is alone.

He is _alone_.

Knowing this; he gives in, and screams into the dirt.

The world is bathed in all the colours of malaise.

* * *

He wakes to towering trees, the size of emperors. The sky is the pale lavender of early mornings; the clouds divvy up white amongst the far off blue; in the distance, behind the hedge maze and the rest of the lobby - a slice of sun cuts brightly across the floating island. It is cool, crisp, and he is covered in dewdrops. His fingers are blue and numb from the cold.

He inhales the brittle morning in one breath, and rubs his fingers together. In the distance, people still talk and the river still runs. If he squints, he can catch the high-flying dots that must be birds on the horizon.

There is no sign of Wolf.

Unlike earlier in the night - the time when it is best to wander the Murder Mystery lobby - sun dapples across ground in spurts of yellow light. The brown needles that litter the ground (and stick to the back of his shirt from where he had lain that night) turn golden from where sunbeams speckle the earth. The grass is green and wet, and the trees are tall and dark. It is the picture of mid Autumn.

But he can see far and wide with this new light, and he knows. He would know, even if he couldn’t see as far as he can now.

Wolf can’t be here. There is no way he could be anywhere else, but somehow, he is not here. And Tommy is alone.

Soul animals aren’t supposed to disappear. Soul animals are supposed to be your constant - your forever companion, the one who sticks by you no matter what, even after you meet the soulmate they correspond to. Humans are flighty and strange, but Soul animals are meant to stay. That’s how it’s supposed to go.

Wolf has been missing for half of a night.

* * *

He is angry.

The feeling doesn’t surprise him, exactly, not after last time. It churns in his gut and wrenches at his insides. It pulls his teeth from their sockets until he’s forced to chew on his own molars. It sticks to his hair like static; fries his skin and sizzles behind his eyes, until every extremity unfettered from his body palpitates away in a rush of putrid blood. He feels fresh, he feels clean. He feels disgusting.

Blood rushes, adrenaline surges, and he sprints around TNT Run until he loses five times in a row. He kicks at the sand, at terracotta, at the piles of dynamite sticks - just to watch people squirm. It’s all dud, anyway; he and Badlinu had learned that the hard way, one particularly mischievous afternoon when they were kids.

He knows he can’t go to Tubbo. Not this time, not like this. He won’t let anything stupid like that get between them ever again. It’s probably for the best that he doesn’t know where he is right now.

Afternoon approaches fast, and Wolf still hasn’t shown up. This is by far the longest he’s ever been missing for. It’s by far the longest Tommy has ever felt so angry for.

But the sun is hot, and the sand bakes underfoot. Soon, he is all out of purring fury and throbbing fists where his blood gathers and thumps. His legs and shoulders tremble from being held stiff all morning, from the exertion and the tense afterimage of clenched muscles. His shirt is drenched. He’s hungry. He wants Wolf back.

He wants Wolf back.

What usually happens is - Tommy sits around, and he waits. Like he has been since midnight last night. He waits and he waits, and Wolf comes back, eventually. 

This time, it doesn’t look like that is going to happen. Maybe - maybe it’s Tommy’s turn to go looking.

He sits in the shade of the train that towers over the tracks, and he thinks. He remembers a similar thought that he had a while ago - he remembers that night he’d lain awake in bed and thought _Tubbo’s the one that usually comes looking._ Maybe it’s his turn.

He’s always been a man of action, anyways.

But what can he do? He has no idea where Wolf goes. He doesn’t know Wolf’s process. The closest he’s gotten to knowing where Wolf is would be knowing where Crow and the badger go - and they’re around even less. What else is there?

In a fit of rising, mutating, blistering frustration (the kind that blinds the control from his eyes; the kind that butchers his taste and tears out his tongue; the kind that unmakes the universe at his fingertips) he storms from lobby to lobby. He razes any quiet feeling that had ever bestowed itself to him; any inane, meaningless votive that thought to bring its meaning to him; any wolf or dog or hound that had thought to plunge its way into his heart and carve out excruciating gaps where all his love was meant to be stored.

He stares forcefully into the face of that goddamn _Solo Mode_ teleporter and imagines furiously what Wolf had seen in it. The sun bleeds dry of colour around him - the stars turn overhead in lazy circles as they orbit the sky in their everlasting downward turn.

The bustle of people slowly recedes, brushing pointedly against him, but he ignores them all. He doesn’t give a shit, because as far as he’s concerned he’s looking at the most vexing puzzle in the history of fuckin’ puzzles, and he’s going to stare that goddamn piece of shit into submission if it’s the last thing he does.

He imagines he’s staring at the snout of Wolf - he imagines plowing his fist into that snout, and -

(The sky turns, the world is round. The horizon goes yellow and orange and lavender and blue and black - and then back again. What’s with all these circles, anyway? Angry; sad… open, hollow. And then Wolf returns, and then he goes again - and the process continues).

\- And feels incredibly guilty.

Because it _is_ a puzzle. And he has no idea if Wolf even means to leave when he does - if it’s even against his will. He just doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything.

The world is quiet - or else Tommy is blind to everything but his own thoughts. He feels the soothing quiet in his bones, and imagines it cradling his aching skull and throbbing muscles.

“So - ” comes a soft voice to his left. Tommy startles from his skin hard enough to feel whiplash. “Are you gonna go in, or…” Tommy turns, about ready to lay into whoever interrupted his brooding - but when he does, he sees someone he perhaps should have expected.

White shirt, red cloak. Rough, thick skin with swathes of wiry pink hair over broad arms and ropes of muscle. A snout between two beady eyes that kind of remind Tommy of beetle shells, and a fringe of pink hair, supposedly tied together at the base of his head.

“... Punch the teleporter?” Technoblade finishes, hesitantly. 

He glances down at his hands, and realises that they are knotted fists. He pats them against his trousers to rid them of sweat and crescent-shaped indents, and then scratches his palms with his nails for good measure. Then he goes back to observing - because he’s right. Technoblade is… being… undecided. About something. It’s almost kind of funny.

A cloud of anxiety ruptures their small bubble as Tommy stares at this man; easily twice his size, being _hesitant_ of all things. Technoblade. Known for being possibly the best at PVP from all of the street urchins that grew off the keel of Hypixel. It’s insane. It’s almost utterly ridiculous. Actually - you know what? It _is_ utterly ridiculous. Technoblade could snap him in half like a twig if he wanted to. Would the Admins even try to stop him?

So he just stares.

And then Technoblade begins to open his mouth again, so Tommy cuts in just ahead of him: “Is it true that you don’t have a Soul animal?”

Technoblade blinks, swallows, and stares back blankly. “Uh…” He divulges.Tommy can’t even begin to feel underwhelmed. Is it possible to be underwhelmed in the presence of the Technoblade? (The _Blade_ , he thinks, and internally snickers - before realising that he is extremely upset over the loss of his Soul animal and pushes the thought aside). “I’m not goin’ to answer that.”

Fair enough. Where did that question even come from? This isn’t his imagination or a dream (he thinks) - this is a real person.

Still, this is the oldest person he’s talked to since he last went to that music disc shop in town, and he can’t help but want to - ask for advice. Something. Anything. He’s talking to a celebrity, after all. He’s talking to someone who definitely knows more than him.

“What…” Tommy gulps down cold air. He sends a half-glance to the distance and sees blurred grey and not much else. “What...would you do if - if your Soul animal kept disappearing?” His voice wavers a little, as if on the verge of a crack. He swallows back the ache in his throat.

Technoblade pauses. Not that he’d been moving before, but - it’s almost like all the tiny ways he’d been shifting before ceased to be. Maybe it’s that his breathing shallows, or his heart slows, or something about his eyes seems to dim and go numb.

Tommy feels himself go frozen with similar unease. What kind of a tender spot had he just blundered into? He hadn’t just pissed off one of the most powerful players known to Hypixel, had he?

“Uh -” he backtracks, a slew of laughter bubbling in his throat. He files through sloughs of information and excuses in his head, but nothing offers itself to his mind immediately. Oh, fuck. Oh shit. “I -”

Technoblade levels him with a narrow look, and without preamble, his mouth snaps closed. It takes several sets of full heartbeats before Tommy realises that he needs to start breathing again. Instinctively, he goes to grab a handful of fur at his side - before he remembers.

Slowly, Technoblade exhales. Tommy watches his breath go white in front of him, a much larger cloud than either he or Tubbo could hope to conjure. Not for the first time, he considers the magnified distance in height and strength between them. Maybe Tubbo would have felt it less, but Tommy is still waiting for a growth spurt. Now, more than ever, he feels… _small_.

It’s not a feeling he’s used to, exactly.

Abruptly, the world goes lopsided, and he almost misses the blanch of surprise that splits between Technoblade’s eyes. With all those years of parkour under his belt, he manages to stay on his feet with a short hop backwards. The Skywars lobby spills into view - all craggy rock and dark wood - as he spins to face his attacker.

Colours whirl and twist, and for a moment, he thinks he’s seeing things.

He meets eyes with an unmistakably familiar face torn into two; all frothing anxiety and smoking rage, colliding like air bending in the moments before a hurricane. Teeth spitting sparks; a snarl caught between gnashing jaws, legs coiled close to the ground, hackles jagged as if struck by lightning.

Wolf.

Tommy swallows, his heart pounding, but Wolf has already moved past their reunion. His eyes are dark and broiling - if he squints, Tommy can almost imagine the crash of rolling thunder caught inside them. Reflections of grey clouds stare back at Tommy, but Wolf’s gaze bores into someone else entirely.

Usually, when Wolf finally returns, Tommy feels - joy. Relief. A well of chilling solace to soothe his drumming hurt.

Usually, the swell of love that shivers in his clamped limbs is blinding. Usually, Wolf’s presence is the sustenance to his Soul. Wolf, to him, is just as crucial as a hot meal or the clear air that he breathes; usually, restraining himself from the physical reassurance that Wolf is _there_ is next to impossible. And it’s never been a problem before.

But this time, Wolf is angry. Wolf is - for once - what must be the closest thing to “scared” as Tommy has ever seen him.

And, to be frank - so is Tommy.

For once, the return of his Soul animal is not a balm. It is not a relief - a solace, a warm morsel of dappled sunlight for Tommy alone. Usually, Wolf is just as glad to see Tommy as Tommy is to see him.

This time, Wolf has no eyes for Tommy.

This time, Wolf ignores him.

In outrage, Tommy wrenches his sleeve from Wolf’s maw (the subsequence to having tugged him away from Technoblade), much to his confusion. They meet eyes again, but this time - and Tommy can feel the rush of it in his veins - _his_ eyes are the ones that broil with burning thunderclaps and reflected skies.

Wolf has the gall to look back in bewilderment.

He turns to see where Technoblade was, but he is already gone. The _Solo Mode_ teleporter flashes emptily, then goes dark.

The sky rumbles with vacant stars.

* * *

The next morning is cold, and dreary. He sits with his back to the smoker as it burns contentedly through its charcoal, as he has all night; sleepless. He has not bothered to light the candles or the torches, so all that lights the room is the gloom from outside the lumpy windows, and the embers that crackle in the furnace.

His knuckles are cracked and dry from the cold, and they ache thinly as he squeezes them between his thighs, in an effort to keep warm. Any other time, Wolf would be right beside him as an alternate heat source - but today, he is in the other room. He has been there all night.

Tommy wishes that he could turn his body off for the day. He doesn’t want to deal with everything that will come as soon as the sun rises. He doesn’t want to deal with anything much at all; he’s not sure he has it in him. It feels like the cold has seeped into his bones, and he doesn’t have the energy to get it out.

Still, it’s a Tubbo day, and he doesn’t want to miss it. Maybe honey and goat’s cheese on slices of toasted bread will help - maybe they can go out into town and get themselves warm drinks. Maybe they can spend the day doing something mindless, like digging holes or building towers.

But delving into himself to find the energy to get up seems so unattainable. He’s never felt so heavy in his life - it’s boring to the point of exhausted tears, but still, he can’t bring himself to do anything productive. 

It’s only when the sun alights on the distant horizon, and he is beyond late to their usual meeting place by the observatory, that he finally manages to bite down on his fatigue and get to his feet. Exhaustion traipses through his every step as he slowly plods to the door, sleep long forgotten.

Out of some sixth sense, Wolf trots to the door behind him. He looks just as bright and lively as always (that is to say, not much), but he shrinks a little under Tommy’s gaze. It’s the only thing that gives way beyond his impassive visage.

Guilt and anger churn in Tommy’s gut, tired and painful. He looks away.

Drowsily, he pushes the door open, already squinting in preparation for the cloud-bright sky - but when he looks up, it’s to a shadow. A Tubbo-shaped shadow.

“You were late,” he explains, by way of greeting. His face is no different to usual, but Tommy can already feel his eyes skating across Tommy’s, taking everything in. He is under no illusions that Tubbo won’t find what he’s looking for. “So I came looking.”

Tommy nods. “Yeah, I was… busy.”

“And I - uh, brought honey and bread.” Sam, perched on a leather strap at Tubbo’s shoulder, gives a long whistle. It sounds like agreement. They head back inside.

The bread is still warm as Tommy saws into it, under the cosy glow of the furnace.Tubbo chatters away about all the snow he’d seen that morning, and Tommy nods along.

“Yeah, I saw it,” he mutters agreeably, pasting cheese onto thin slices (the closest to crackers they’ll probably get). He had seen the snow, of course. He’d been awake when the clouds broke open, earlier in the morning.

Tubbo grins, and drizzles honey over the plate of bread and cheese. They each take a slice. “Soon we’ll be having snowball fights again!” he cheers. Tommy pretends to be too busy chewing to speak, but hums as enthusiastically as he can.

They chow down on every slice, until half of the loaf is already gone. They lick the plate clean of excess honey with sticky fingers and rosy lips, and grin at each other after arguing over a clump of cheese, self-satisfied. It’s only as they’re wiping the plate clean of its last crumbs that Tubbo finally speaks again.

“So…” he hums, glancing around almost feverishly. “Where’s Wolf?”

For a moment, Tommy wonders if Wolf has gone invisible in the house for some reason - before he remembers. He scowls at his fingers, glistening with viscid sweetness.

“He’s a fucking bitch, hiding again probably.”

“Hiding?” Tubbo questions. “What - why?”

Tommy shrugs. “We’re having an argument, I guess.” he pauses, tentatively touches on the burly anger in his belly. “No, we definitely are.”

Tubbo frowns uncertainly. Even Sam gives a weak whistle, peering down at him with one keen eye. “What do you mean? You’ve never had an argument before.”

“You know how he is with Technoblade?” At Tubbo’s nod, he sighs, and begins to tell the story of what happened the day before.

After he’s run out of words, they sit for a moment. Sam preens shrewdly atop the table. “Well, that’s just uncalled for.” Tubbo finally decides on. “But… what about the others?”

“What - others? You mean Crow and the badger?”

“Yeah! Where are they now?”

“Argh, Tubbo…” he complains. “That’s the whole thing! I don’t know. They just disappear and then come back again. And I just have to live with it! It’s fucking stupid.”

“Well, why don’t we try and figure it out then?”

He groans, sinking back into his chair. “There’s no way to. I’ve tried asking and everything, but it’s not like they can talk.”

He thinks back to that morning with Crow, nearly a week ago. The sleep-warm kitchen, the clumsily toasted bread, the cheese that fell in loops between his teeth and the bread. Beady eyes, dark and canny. The sting of a nibble on his ear; the playful hopping around his house, somehow knowing exactly where to go - as if they’d all grown up there together.

He remembers first meeting the badger, ages and ages ago, before he really knew what it meant to lose a Soul animal. The way his clever eyes had watched him, somehow sussing him out, somehow knowing what to do. Somehow fixing up his injuries. He’s not sure his hands would be quite the same without him.

He looks at them now - crooked at the knuckles, skin cracked and rubbed red and itchy. He knows how to reliably throw a punch now - the kind that won’t break his fragile finger bones or knock his knuckles into disarray. But they’ll always have that physical difference from the first time he’d really messed one up.

“I’m just - it’s so annoying. For once, I finally get to talk to someone who might know what’s going on with me, and the second I do, Wolf comes and ruins it.” He sighs, rubs honey onto the backs of his hands, as if that’ll somehow dull the ache. “Why’d he do something like that?”

Tubbo’s hand seems to automatically go to Sam, who preens under the comforting scratch. Tommy can’t tear his eyes away. “I don’t know… maybe he knows something we don’t? Soul animals are weird, man.”

Tommy scowls at the table through the gaps in his fingers. “You’re telling me.”

* * *

Tubbo tugs him away from his home the second the sun breaks through the clouds. In the Housing district, the snow has settled in a thin crunchy layer over the top of stiff grass. It’s miles away from the chilly midnight stroll he’d taken a few days ago in the Murder Mystery lobby.

The main Hub, in contrast, only has scattered slush in the streets. He kicks it away with each step, just to watch it splatter over the ground. It’s a lot emptier than the last time he made this trip with Wolf around a week ago, but people still mill about, and the stores are still open. Hawkers cast out their street cries, but most let them pass without too much effort. Other than that, it’s oddly… quiet.

Sam seems to notice this too, and starts chattering away at them, mostly pointing out objects he recognises - like types of wood, flowers, and the odd knickknack. He seems especially interested in the redstone vendors, even though Tommy’s certain Tubbo barely ever goes near that stuff.

“Do you always talk this much?” Tommy grumbles, before he can stop himself.

Tubbo laughs, and Sam squawks. “I didn’t even have to teach him most of it - he just knew how. Or maybe he picked it up while I was learning, too.”

“Wouldn’t put it past a Soul animal.” It ends up sounding bitter, and he regrets it almost the second it comes from his mouth. He’s painfully aware of Wolf, a few paces behind.

They continue on in a strained silence, following a route Tommy begins to find suspiciously familiar. His intuition is proven right when they pull over to a familiar-looking stall. The plants are looking slightly duller in the cold, but the sun is just as golden, and the music discs are just as shiny in the light.

The same Mute mans the counter, her Soul animal chirruping at her shoulder. It greets them cheerily, and she gives them a small wave.

Tubbo strides forward, and pulls a record with a bright green label off the rack at the front, as opposed to the box Tommy had first used. Had he already been here since Tommy first told him about it, that morning when they had listened to _Chirp_ nonstop?

“Can we give this one a listen?” Tubbo asks, and the vendor smiles.

 _Sure!_ She tells them, her mouth unmoving. Numbly, he puts his hands to his ears, even if they hadn’t been used. It’s an eerie sensation, to hear without evidence that there was sound.

They sit around the jukebox, which is much easier to hear this time, and listen to the first odd tones that come through. It’s a pretty sound.

“What’s this one called?” he asks, before he can help himself.

“Do you like it?” He nods, running his hands up and down his thighs, and pretends he’s not feeling unbearably awkward. (Wolf hasn’t sat down or even approached him since they got back home. He tries painfully to avoid looking in his direction, standing between them and the strangers passing by). “I thought you might - it’s called _Cat_. Let’s get it!”

Tommy grins and agrees, and they walk up to the stand. This time, the man from before is standing there too - tall and burly with his speckled blue skin. They make the small transaction (Tubbo insists on paying, since Tommy got them the last one), and are about to head out when the Mute mentions something about Tubbo’s leather sleeve - the one Sam uses to land on without his talons sinking in too deep. Naturally, they fall into deep conversation.

Without Tubbo to talk to, it’s harder than ever to ignore Wolf. It’s not like he’s in his line of sight, or anything, but the urge to turn and check on how’s feeling or what he’s thinking is nearly too excruciating to ignore. He feels his hands clench and unclench in anxiety.

It’s stupid - and it’s not like Wolf has the mouth to apologise, anyway; not like Sam can. He’s got a gobful of teeth and a tongue, but he can’t use them the way Tommy or Tubbo can. It’s not like he can help it, but… it’s just so annoying. Why does he have to be like that? He’d never thought of Wolf’s protectiveness as suffocating before, but -

“Soulmate troubles?” comes a familiar gravelly voice. It sounds like he’s trying to speak between vines caught in his throat.

Tommy turns to the creeper hybrid. His face is set permanently in that creeper-look, so it’s hard to tell, but he looks friendly. Wolf would still back him up if he got into a fight, right?

His eyes flicker over to the wolfhound in question, standing at attention and watching from the corner of his eye, like he doesn’t want to get caught. They look away at the same time, before it can go on for too long.

He remembers the way they’d been when they were last here, and what this man in particular had said about it. He’s not surprised someone noticed - after all, it isn’t exactly normal for a Soul animal to be so far from their soulmate. Still, it’s a little embarrassing.

“... You could say that,” he ends up replying.

The man rubs a hand over the mismatched skin of his face, as if stroking a beard, though there’s no facial hair visible to Tommy. His eyes follow Tommy’s gaze curiously. “You met your soulmate yet?”

Tommy shrugs - then catches himself and shakes his head.

“That a ‘no’?”

He clears his throat. “Uh, no. I haven’t met him.” _(Or them_ , he thinks to himself, quietly, and then clamps down on the thought. Is that even possible?)

“Well, you should probably sort that out soon, then,” the man quirks his head, a miniscule gesture in Wolf’s direction. Wolf’s head is turned away, but his eyes watch them unsubtly. “Only a Soul animal can tell who your soulmate is for sure.”

At this, the otter over his shoulder chirps into view, batting at the man’s ears. Tommy looks away, thinking. Or, trying to think. His mind just keeps going back to Wolf.

“And… how would I - how would I ‘sort it out’?”

“Well,” the man considers, running a hand over the otter’s back. “Start by finding the root of the problem, and work from there.”

Tommy scowls. “That’s just stupidly vague,” he grumbles.

The man shrugs. “It’s the same as any other relationship. You have to keep working at it.”

“I thought soulmates were supposed to be the perfect person?”

“The perfect person doesn’t make the perfect relationship. Although that does help.” He gestures behind them, to Tubbo and the Mute. “You get along well enough with him, hey?”

Tommy holds the disc in knotted fists, thinking about all of the good times he’d had with Tubbo - the lighthearted squabbles; early mornings on the observatory spent in the sun; clumsily wading through failed pranks and various unknowns - and those few serious arguments he remembers having that they fumbled into sorting out. Why couldn’t he have just been soulmates with Tubbo? It would have made things so much easier. Everything is so much more complicated like this.

Then he thinks back to the argument they’d had a week ago - the one that had been resolved in part because Wolf had helped out.

Because Wolf had brought him to the very shop that they were at now, and gave him the push that he needed to approach Tubbo.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, finally. “I guess so.”

Later, as they’re walking back, Tommy kicks at the ground again. The slush sprays out ahead of them like comet trails. Sam isn’t jabbering at them anymore, but Wolf hasn’t moved from his spot a few paces behind them. It's quieter now than it was on the way there.

Eventually, it gets too quiet to bear.

“I still don’t get it, though,” Tommy complains into the open air, watching fog spill out ahead of him, and remembering that huge cloud Technoblade managed to summon; huge in comparison. “Why does Wolf always do that stupid stupid overprotective thing? I can take care of myself!”

“Maybe he’s just worried - maybe he just doesn’t know when the time and place for protectiveness is. It’s not like you’re much better - you’re stupidly rash sometimes,” Tubbo points out.

“That’s not true! I think about things!”

“He definitely cares about you. And besides,” He continues, unabashed. “He didn’t do that just now, while you were talking with that guy. Seems like he’s trying to me.”

Tommy looks down, rubs a thumb over the cardboard sleeve of their new music disc - something they never would have gotten ahold of, without Wolf. A heavy sort of feeling pulls at his belly, and he finally looks back at Wolf, who stares back curiously. They hold eye contact for several heartbeats, and he can’t help but count each one.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, once he turns back to Tubbo. “I guess so.

And they leave it at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we finally get to meet Technoblade... and it doesn't go too well. Hopefully it lives up to your expectations. I spent a good few weeks on this chapter (I think? Is time even real these days) and about half of that I spent on that confrontation in particular.
> 
> I actually procrastinated it so hard I've written a complete scene in the final chapter, which I'm starting to realise is getting further and further away from me. I get the feeling this fic is going to be a lot longer than the 10k one shot I had originally planned... lol


	4. Did you happen to catch my eye?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long!! I actually wrote a lot for this, but only realised afterwards that it was like... way further away into the timeline. Like, final chapter stuff. So the last chapter is like half done already, which isn't so bad I guess. But this took a bit longer, so also my bad?? hehe
> 
> Also!! u will see canon divergence here, we're starting to get into smp lore, so be ready for that!! i'm trying to avoid writing people i'm not sure about the boundaries of (with the exception of Badlinu and Tubbo bc i needed to pay homage to the skyblock boys and bc i felt like tommy needed friends growing up? i mean we know how he is being left alone in canon), so i'm trying to only vaguely mention factions from now on if i dont know :)
> 
> On another note, I was checking statistics earlier and? over 300 kudos??? t hank u all so much???????? what the heck i love u all :D

Tommy’s fourteen, and he’s crowded around a workbench with Tubbo, palms blistered with leather and puckish grime. Grungy light drifts in from dusty windows near the tops of the walls, where wind ruffles strands of grass and dandelions that grew in inconvenient places. It would have been a warm day if not for the harsh gales that blew down from the aerosphere. 

“What are you guys even making that for?” Badlinu pesters from the top of an empty surface. A pine marten scratches her chin with a hind leg at his side. Her eyes are the deepest, darkest brown Tommy’s ever seen. “Sam already has enough perches.”

“It’s not for Sam,” Tommy announces simply. Tubbo shrugs in agreement.

Badlinu kicks his legs and winces when he jars one against an unexpected table leg. “I thought you hadn’t seen that old crow in ages, though.”

“No,” he confirms. “But - ” 

He’s interrupted when the wind hits the windows at an angle that sends them rattling against their frames. 

(Thunder strikes in his skull; wind and rain splatter his face. Frigid air spikes up his spine like static).

Tubbo inhales as he swings a hammer onto one of the fasteners. Warm breath strikes his cheek. Has it always been so hot in here?

He shakes himself off. Rattling windows are hardly close to what real thunder sounds like. There’s not even the accompanying crash that crawls up skin and makes hairs rise all over and bones rattle in their sockets - the impact that whites out vision and sends nails staggering into trembling earth.

It’s not that Tommy is avoiding the weather - it’s just that it feels safer to be in a house that doesn’t creak under inexpertly crafted foundations. The day he’ll rebuild his house is the day it gets knocked down, is what he’s decided. But, well - no harm in being out of harm’s way when it happens.

So he’d woken that morning, heard the incoming storm, and gone straight to visit Tubbo. Nothing scary about storms. Not really.

Badlinu had been there already, sheepish but not showing it. He’d grinned with all his teeth when he saw Tommy.

Somehow they’d ended up in Tubbo’s honey cellar, which doubled up as a crafting room for special occasions. All of the assorted tools and leather sleeves and blown glass bottles that they’d made over the years - they all came from here. All of the crooked jokes and crude friendships and every message sent to the stars. All their brave faces; taped clothes before they learned to sew; fever dreams painted into slabs of wood.

This is not the place where they met, or even the place where the most important or exciting things had happened. This is not the place where they rode out their first illnesses, or where he got into his first fight, or the place the second and third Soul animals first appeared.

But it is a place, and it is important.

Or maybe Tommy is just a snail, and this is just his shell.

“Are you sure you want to go?” Tubbo asks, once the windows have settled and they have gone back to their work. He’s smoothing over the new leather with reddened knuckles and careful eyes - or at least, eyes that turn careful under light of the storm.

Tommy sighs and hooks his hands into his pockets. For all that the storm rages outside, and the day is gray and wet and chilly, this room manages to smell of warmth and smooth wood and sparkling sawdust. “I’ll come visit.”

“Well, I should hope so.” They make eye contact.

Badlinu slips off the work surface to lean against their bench with open palms. “What do you mean? Where are you going?”

“Well - ”

“It was kind of last minute,” Tommy supplies. “Just found out a bit ago.”

“Yeah - where, though?”

Tommy grins, despite himself. It’s still kind of cool, to be fair. “I’m joining an SMP. SMP Earth.”

Tubbo holds the sleeve up to the windows, as if the dim light will be any better out there than from the torches they’ve lit around the room. He doesn’t look especially anxious or upset (and he shouldn’t), but there’s something off about the way he’s inspecting it so closely.

“What the hell?” Badlinu coughs. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I told you, it was last minute. I didn’t think I’d get in until the last second.”

“Holy hell, dude.” The pine marten squeaks in equal astonishment. She skitters over Badlinu’s shoulders in blind figure eights, but never seems to lose balance. “Does this call for a sleepover?”

Tommy says “Ugh, really?” at the same time as Tubbo exclaims: “Yes!” And all at once, Tubbo’s shoulder is filled with a flurry of feathers and fidgeting claws. His hand goes to Sam’s insisting beak as if out of habit. “It’ll be so fun!”

Tommy considers this - considers that this will probably be one of his last evenings on Hypixel for a while. Considers, with something altogether too close to heartsickness, that this will be his first time so far away from everything he knows; his friends, his home; all of his firsts and maybe a few of his lasts. 

He goes for a handful of fur, but Wolf is not here. Wolf is upstairs.

But by now, he is used to swallowing complicated feelings, and the curious flavours that come with them.

“Well, okay then.”

When night finally spurns the sun from the sky, they put out the torches’ breath with metal snuffers and light tiny tealights in saucers between blankets and duvets. They hang a broom over the gap between two crafting benches, lay the largest blanket they have over the top, and call it a fort, like they’re properly children again.

Wolf isn’t within eyesight, but Tommy thinks he heard the door creak open earlier. Maybe it was just the house settling. He’s not sure he wants to know.

“So, what are you gonna do? Once you get to the SMP.”

Tommy shrugs, and stares at the flickering surface of the blanket, dipped orange in the candlelight. His chest feels burned where some sort of a cavity sits. “I dunno. Maybe I’ll make my own city - that’d be pretty cool.”

* * *

On the first night of joining the SMP, Wolf and Tommy end up holing away in a cave for the night. Tommy carves a vent as far up as he can reach, and blocks out the entrance with planks of wood and torches in an effort to ward off monsters. Wolf breathes oxygen into the flames of a tiny campfire. With how deep the cave is, they shouldn’t suffocate, but he’d rather play it safe.

Now, with the last of his scavenged rations securely tied to his backpack, and the fire churning warmly away, he lies on a roll of wool and waits for sleep to come. His limbs ache all over, and the shallow scratches from the zombie he’d killed earlier still throb and pulse to the beat of his thudding heart.

It’s been a long day of mining.

While he has the mind to remember, he pulls out the enchanted map he’d received upon spawning into the World. It shimmers with purple and blue, even after he breaks the engraved seal. The paper feels oddly supple under his fingertips.

He stares into the map, trying to wrangle his brain into understanding, even with the dull ache for sleep reverberating in his skull. Crude faces pop up all over the map; some moving, and others mostly still, like his. Probably sleeping, or at least settling down. He wonders how close it is to sundown, or even if it has already passed.

He’s about to put it away and head to bed, when he spies a familiar face amongst all of the strangers (some of which he’s actually already heard of, including a man he knows of secondhand; the Captain). A snout between two black eyes; the kind that remind him of beetle shells. At the bottom of a continent, far to the south.

He rolls the map back up, and it reseals itself automatically. The symbols on the seal look a lot like hazy letters, in a way, and he wonders if it’s some kind of a language. He wonders if it’s possible to learn, or maybe if it’s the source to all of the magicky stuff. He’s too tired to put too much thought into it, so he puts the map away and lies back down.

Technoblade, huh? Maybe he should visit.

Maybe that’d be a terrible, horrible, very bad idea.

He frowns.

Changing worlds is not unlike the teleportation pads from back home. It’s the same nauseous, swelling feeling that swoops around and drops like a rock. It’s the same bleary black spots that flicker and fade as his vision blinks and pops with colour.

The main difference is the itchy newness of it all; the kind that makes him feel overly clean and scrubbed dry. He feels well oiled, and the creak that usually rests in the knuckles of his right hand has gone completely, despite the remaining crookedness.

Actually, the most disorienting part of the whole ordeal is having Wolf there, right next to him. And this is the part that makes him nervous about Technoblade, the most familiar face he’s seen since he first spawned here.

Wolf hasn’t been straying nearly as far as he normally would, and maybe it’s just the new place, the unknown dangers, but - it could be something else. What does he know?

It can’t have been that long since they’d last been as close as this - he’s half certain that Wolf comes to lie next to him when he’s asleep - but every time they catch each other’s gaze, Tommy finds that neither of them can look away.

For years, the thing he’d thought about the most ended up being obsolete. Think about Wolf - think about Wolf being gone - and then stop thinking. Wolf is gone, and what can he do? Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

It left him trapped; constantly on edge, constantly falling back on laughter and fun, constantly playing it off. What if these were his last moments with Wolf? What then?

Now, he applies the same logic anew: could these really be his last moments with Wolf? Can he really spend the last of the time they have together in the throes of some stupid, useless argument?

At the same time - _is_ this a useless argument? Should they just accept a mediocre relationship? Can’t they be more? Can’t they -

Is it even an argument, or are they just avoiding each other so that they don’t have to make it awkward?

If that’s the case, he rebuffs internally, dry; then they’ve missed the mark entirely.

Wolf - constantly questioning his own behaviour around Tommy, constantly overthinking or avoiding or keeping his distance. Breath hot over the plate of affection, but never touching, never tasting. He’s always been a bit like that, but - he’s never been so insistent. He’s never spent so long avoiding Tommy like the plague. He’s not sure he’s ever avoided Tommy like the plague.

And then there’s Tommy - sick with ascetic heartburn and nautical dichotomies made from the pit of a place too dark to see. Eager, hopeful; hurt, uncertain. Conflicted. Teeth, bone, blood; spit, fire, skin. What is he so afraid of? What is Wolf so afraid of? Neither of them want this, do they? Why are they living like this? Can’t they just sit up and solve it?

He buries his face into the woollen roll, and tries to pretend he’s not thinking about it. He tumbles onto his side to stare out into the cave.

Wolf is always the first to look away. Every time, he passes it off - like he’s watching that rabbit bound up the hill, or keeping an eye out for skeletons under the shade of trees, or whatever else.

Darkness chews at the edges of his vision as his eyes silently take in the fire that slowly burns away at their supply of wood. They’ll need to go back up to the surface soon - maybe tomorrow, although it’ll be impossible to tell when that is. Whenever he next wakes up, maybe.

Beyond the fire, the cave’s walls seem to bounce and fray with the rhythm of flickering light. He knows that the rock can’t possibly be moving, but he allows his vision to swim as if it does; as if magic truly exists in this new, lonely world.

His only companion is Wolf, whose long back lolls in the warmth at the other side of the fire. His belly rises and falls as if he’s sleeping, but his beetle-black eyes glitter wetly, like they’d captured the stars. They are just as awake as each other, even after their long day.

Idly, he pinches a wandering thought from the curious recesses of his mind. He knows that Wolf can sleep, that much is obvious. But can Wolf get tired? It’d make sense if he did, considering all the walking around he does, but he is a Soul animal. Are Soul animals alive?

Through the flames, Tommy sees Wolf blink.

Unthinkingly, Tommy blinks back. He yawns.

“Why don’t you come over here?” he ponders out into the smoky air. Maybe he should have made the vent larger, but at the very least, they’re not squandering the warmth. “Why are you over there all the time?”

Wolf’s expression remains its lazy self, saggy with sleep and warmth. His eyes, though - they seem to bore into Tommy; pinpricks of intensity. He’s too tired to suss out its significance.

“Why?” he mumbles. “Was it something I did?”

Wolf exhales heavily, and turns his head away. With his lips relaxed like that, Tommy can see the layer of teeth that enclose his tongue, hanging just centimetres apart from each other. They glint in the light, but they don’t seem threatening at all.

Tommy takes that as his cue to go to sleep as well, and he’s almost glad for it. Maybe he’d ended up hoping for something to come of that conversation, but he can’t quite remember.

The fire has gone quiet by the time Tommy comes to vague wakefulness next, and that’s the only reason he hears the soft padding of Wolf’s footsteps approaching. He falls asleep again before he can really comprehend what that means.

* * *

So, maybe this hadn’t been his best idea. Of course, everyone had warned him off, everyone had told him that it was a bad idea - but, in his defense, it could have been worse. And who’s to say it’s going to be all bad? When he gets back home, it’ll make a great story to tell. Kinda.

“Oh my god,” He exclaims, peering over the railings of the Antarctic Empire’s base of operations. The ground swells up before him, decked in the kind of snow that’s been remelted so many times it’s turned to layers of heavy ice. The wind whistles, and hurls powdery snow about in patterns reminiscent of tree grain. “That’s a long way down.”

His only shelter is the icy claws that descend from above, forming a curved cave-like structure over his head. The stone pikes that line the railings are cold enough to be sticky, and he struggles to tear them free, once he’s safely onto the minecart tracks. Wolf steadies him when he stumbles, and a shiver of warmth seizes his spine in the long seconds after the moment has already passed.

He hasn’t really thought about it until recently, but it’s been a while since they properly touched.

Light refracts in spears of cold colour across the wooden tracks, giving the whole space an eerie hue of blue. He digs his heels into the gaps between the metal bars of the tracks so as not to slip, and continues further into the base.

For such an echoey place, it sure is quiet here. He wonders if anyone is home, or if he’s alone out in the middle of nowhere. Surely not, right?

He’s not seen a lot of people since he’s joined the server. It’s an odd dichotomy from what he’s used to; the Hypixel lobbies, teeming with people and noise and colours - but it’s different here. He’s talked to the Inquisitors and a few others in between, but not even his faction allies really contact him all that much. His only real solace is Wolf, who isn’t exactly the best conversationalist. 

They stalk the tracks as quietly as possible, Wolf casually making leaps between the pikes that line the railings, in a manner of grace only Soul animals can manage; not even the layers of ice that coat the stone seem to bother him. For some reason, Wolf seems to know the area well enough, so Tommy follows his lead.

Every time the wood creaks beneath Tommy’s feet, or the ice pops and squeals from snow or wind, they both freeze up in twin stances. If it weren’t for the anxiety simmering lowly in his chest, Tommy might have thought their mirrored positions funny.

Eventually, they stumble upon a room with a widened path (or, Tommy thinks they stumble into it. There’s a limit to how much Wolf can know about this place, right?) Stone bricks and cobblestone line the walls and floor, held together tightly with bound wooden foundations, smothered in thick ice. There are gaps in the walls where windows should be, and Tommy shivers as a bitter wind passes over him.

Cautiously, he steps forward through the narrow hall into the room. Behind him, Wolf’s tail lashes harshly enough to whip against the walls, upending rhythmic thuds throughout the whole base. He wonders what kind of a fear this place exudes, to have him so worked up.

The room is small enough that he can cross it in a few strides, and only made more cramped by the far wall being stuffed with chests upon chests. A small jolt of adrenaline passes over him in a wave when he spots two beds up against the far wall, clearly used and slept in. Is this a bedroom? Some kind of a barrack?

Has he just stumbled into the private quarters of _Technoblade?_ Technoblade and his associates, who are probably equally as cool and strong?

Something frozen grips him at the teeth, curls its fingers between his, breathes cold fire down his neck. He can feel the danger before it spits itself out at him, and something about the feeling keeps him suspended in the moments before retreating and fighting back.

Fight or flight? Yeah right.

“Who’s there?” Comes a rumbling tone, and maybe it should have sparked surprise in him enough to defrost his muscles into motion, but somehow he found himself expecting it. “I can hear you.”

Silent realisation washes over him, and he stares behind him at Wolf, whose tail pauses its vivid thumps against ice almost instantly. _Loud._

Wolf, realising in the same moment, stalks forward between Tommy’s legs. His tail stubbornly continues its curled bashing at the walls, like some kind of a war drum. Before Tommy can even think to stop him, Wolf steps fearlessly into the room, wiry hair standing on end like he’s been electrocuted.

“Wh - ” A pause. “What?”

Wolf’s snarl sizzles in his throat, and for some reason that’s the sound that jerks Tommy from his stupor. “Wolf,” he hisses, clutching a fistful of fur from Wolf’s back between his squeezed knuckles.

A shade passes over them, sending a wash of dull blue over the narrow space between Tommy and Wolf and -

“Oh,” Technoblade mutters, as if his voice doesn’t echo noisily anyway. His facial expression doesn’t change much from its mildly dubious look, one eyebrow quirked as if to imply Tommy’s stupidity for even being here. Tommy would agree, if it weren’t for the fact that this was his idea in the first place. “What are you doin’ in my house?”

If possible, Wolf’s fur stands further on end, his back just slightly arched. Tommy’s fists clench impossibly tighter, as if he could stop a Soul animal who wanted their way. “Uh - just, y’know - just looking around.”

He’d actually been planning on stealing some stuff, given half the chance, but technoblade does _not_ need to know that.

“What, is my house a tourism attraction now?” Techno huffs, sending a huge cloud of vapour into the air between them. Just like how Tommy remembers; just as big and intimidating, just the kind of cloud he’d expect of someone nearly twice his size, even with his more recent growth spurt. “Get out - and don’t steal anything.”

On an impulse high, a bubble of laughter bursts from Tommy’s throat. “I would never do that.” He’d _totally_ do that.

Techno spares them each a doubtful look - the first time he’s really even looked at Wolf since he first entered the room, in spite of the clear hostility - and sweeps a hand over them. Even at shoulder height, it passes well over Tommy’s head, and certainly far over Wolf’s.

But somehow, this is the breaking point. This is the point where whatever storm has been building in Wolf, erupts - cold smoke; undying fire; instant, sizzling lightning, striking at the sky like discordant thunder. The moment Wolf’s teeth sink into the meat of Technoblade’s hand is the same moment Techno raises his sword from its scabbard, and the same moment Tommy’s heart twists so far it turns inside out.

Fire blisters in his veins. For a heartbeat of a moment, all Tommy can hear is the roar of his own vicious blood in his own burning ears - but only for a single heartbeat of a moment.

Technoblade swings his blade - gleaming iron, or maybe fresh steel and ice. Too soon for Wolf to dodge, but too slow for Tommy’s thoughts not to spin in circles of _can Soul animals die?_

_Can Wolf die?_

But the sword goes straight through Wolf, and his jaws slip through skin and flesh, as if they’d never been solid in the first place.

Heartbeats. Caught breath. Bitter fingernails.

Technoblade’s eyes seize his, fingers splaying blindly over the hilt of his jutted blade, his snout pulsating with flaring nostrils. His breath comes quicker and faster, sending waves of steam through the narrow corridor, and it’s all Tommy can do just to see his own feet in front of him.

Wolf grabs the flesh of his thumb with pointed teeth, and it’s the only thing that pulls him back far enough to avoid the swing that passes over his head. Cold seeps into the seat of his trousers, and he realises with a sudden start that he’s fallen back into the floor.

He scrambles to his feet, barely catching the sound of his own inhale under the din of his blundering heart. Wolf shoves him back with a hard headbutt, and he can’t see what happens next, but the harsh bark and shriek of metal against bone is enough to give him an idea.

Tommy’s been in his fair share of fights, true. Arguments gone too far; squabbles over prices or who won or what to have for dinner that night. Fist fights, crude games of spleef - and those few times when someone brought a knife to a fistfight, and everyone involved mutually agreed to take them down.

And it’s not like he doesn’t know swordplay, or how to shoot a bow (although he’s pretty shit at long range stuff), but it’s - well.

It’s not much.

But Wolf and Technoblade go at it like they’ve done it for years - spinning and ducking and weaving in and out of jabs and slices and chokeholds. It looks so much like a dance where no one is supposed to touch each other, that Tommy’s almost surprised to see blood sprouting from Technoblade’s armour exposed hand.

He’s never seen Wolf like this - so unfalteringly single minded; so… vicious. Is this the same lazy old dog that would spend hours sprawled under the sun, or the same dog that would gently tease Tommy’s grubby fingers away from his latest trouble making scheme, or the dog that would fret quietly over large crowds and social developments?

Surely not. Surely…

He chokes.

“Wolf, stop!” Tommy yells, trying to hear himself over everything that probably isn’t as loud as it feels; the whirring, buzzing the shudders in his teeth and down his skeleton. He can taste bitter iron on his tongue, and he can’t be sure if it’s blood, or split steel. “Wolf!”

But Wolf doesn’t listen, teeth gnashing audibly as he stands tall against the unfeasibly taller Technoblade. There shouldn’t even be enough room for what they’re doing, out here on the thin railings and icy ledges, but Wolf has always taken that kind of thing in stride, and Technoblade seems to be no different.

“What the heck is wrong with this dog?” Technoblade exclaims, sounding more exasperated than anything else. Tommy’s not sure he’s relieved about that. “Get out of my house!”

Air strangles itself in Tommy’s throat as he tries to come up with a response, but everything is too bright and too dim all at once. He can feel everything around him in such detail that it’s nearly blinding - at the same time, it’s like he can’t take anything in for longer than a moment at a time.

In the heartbeats between one clash and the next, Tommy dives forward, tackling Wolf to the ground. They tumble painfully over the bumpy tracks, each metal bar an ice-cold blight against his skin. Maybe he should have dressed a little warmer for the occasion.

Wolf snarls, struggling underneath Tommy’s weight. But Tommy is the only thing in the world that can consistently and continuously touch Wolf, and so the only thing that can reliably stop him from doing something stupid like attacking _fucking_ Technoblade; arguably the best weaponsman on the World, and possibly the most powerful man full stop - what with his allies, and his resources and land borders.

He’s so busy pinning Wolf to the frozen ground, in fact, that he doesn’t notice the approaching footsteps. The only warning he really gets is the infinitesimally small widening to Wolf’s eyes, and then - 

There’s a sword in his back.

Distantly, he hears _Cat_ crackling to life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter actually took so long that not only did i post two other one-shots, my birthday also came and went. I am now.. officially...... an adult. PogChamp?
> 
> thank you all for your patience, and I will try to get the next chapter out sooner!!
> 
> i am practicing fight scenes yay

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully I'll actually finish this, because I have a bad track record for leaving WIPs I post unfinished. As in, I have never done it before.
> 
> As in, I have been writing for six years.
> 
> pray for me


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